Page:Jardine Naturalist's Library Foreign Butterflies.djvu/215

171 CATAGRAMMA PYRAMUS.

PLATE XX. Figs. 3 and 4.

Pap. Pyramus, Drury's Insects, iii. Pl. 23, fig. 3, 4, (Male); Stoll's Supp. Pl. 32, fig. 3, and 3 C.

prettily coloured butterfly measures about an inch and three-quarters between the tips of the wings. The surface is black, finely tinged with violet, with a broad central common band of bright red, not extending either to the costa or hinder extremity. The under side of the upper wings nearly corresponds to the surface, but they are grey at the base and tip, and near the latter there is an undulating blue line: the under wings dark brown sprinkled with grey, with two whitish spots towards the base, without any vestige of a red band, a curved row of ocellated spots behind the middle, and a waved blue line near the extremity.

The female is black on the surface without any violet reflection, and the red band, which is narrower than in the male, does not extend to the secondary wings. This insect is a native of Brazil. We have placed it in the genus Catagramma, without knowing what limits are assigned to the group so called by the continental entomologists, as the name only has yet been published. Perhaps it rather belongs to the division named Hipparchia.