. The Cambridge natural history. Zoology. 346 LEPIDOPTERA. Fig. 173.âIthomia pusio. Brazil. Sub-Fam. 2. Ithomiides.âi^?/ers from BanaicUs hy the female front foot having a true, though somewhat ahlreviate tarsus. The caterpillers have no long i^rocesses. There has been considerable difference of opinion as to this division of butter- flies. It is the family Neotropidae of Schatz, the Mechanitidae of Berg; also the " Danaioid Heliconiidae " of several previous writers, except that Ituna and Lycorea do not belong here but to Danaides. Godman and Salvin treat it as a â group of the Dana
. The Cambridge natural history. Zoology. 346 LEPIDOPTERA. Fig. 173.âIthomia pusio. Brazil. Sub-Fam. 2. Ithomiides.âi^?/ers from BanaicUs hy the female front foot having a true, though somewhat ahlreviate tarsus. The caterpillers have no long i^rocesses. There has been considerable difference of opinion as to this division of butter- flies. It is the family Neotropidae of Schatz, the Mechanitidae of Berg; also the " Danaioid Heliconiidae " of several previous writers, except that Ituna and Lycorea do not belong here but to Danaides. Godman and Salvin treat it as a â group of the Danaid sub-family. The Ithomiides are peculiar to tropical America, where some 20 or 30 genera and about 500 species have been discovered. There is considerable variety amongst them. Ithomia and Hymenitis are remarkable for the small area of their wings, which bear remarkably few scales, these ornaments being in many cases limited to narrow bands along the margins of the wings, and a mark extending along the discocellular nervule. Wallace says they prefer the shades of the forest and flit, almost invisible, among the dark foliage. Many of these species have the hind-wings differently veined in the two sexes on the anterior part, in connection with the existence in the male of peculiar fine hairs, placed near the costal and subcostal veins. Tithorea and other forms are, how- ever, heavily scaled insects of stronger build, their colours usually being black, tawny-red or brown, yellow, and white. In the sub-fam. Danaides, according to Fritz Miiller, the male has scent- tufts at the extremity of the abdomen, whereas in Ithomiides analogous structures exist on the upper side of the hind-wing. Ithomiides have various colour-resemblances with members of the Heliconiides and Pieridae; Tithorea has colour analogues in Eeliconius, and Ithomia in Dismorphia (formerly called lejitalis). Crowds of individuals of certain species of Ithomia are occasion- ally met with, and mixed with them ther
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