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174 MORPHO HELENOR.

PLATE XXI.

Godart.—Pap. Helenor, Cramer, Pl. 86, fig. A, B; Herbst. Pap. Pl. 26, fig. 1, 2; Esper. Papillon's Exotiques, Pl. 42, fig. 2.

affords an example of that section of the genus in which the upper wings are more or less concave on the outer margin, and the inferior pair without any prolongation behind. They are almost exclusively South American. M. Helenor expands from four to five inches; surface black, with a broad band of silvery blue or violet blue, extending from the middle of the anterior margin to the anal extremity; sometimes rather narrow and well defined on the inner edge, at other times enlarged to within a short distance of the base of the wings; at the anterior extremity of this band, on the costa, there is an oblique white patch, and beyond it, on the upper wings, a single row of small white spots in the male, and two in the female. The secondary wings have an indistinct row of red crescents near the hinder margin, and the sinuosities in all the wings are white. The colour beneath is dark brown, the upper wings with three large ocelli having a white pupil surrounded with ferruginous and violet, the iris