Page:The Zoologist, 1st series, vol 1 (1843).djvu/57

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Insects.
29

Hab. Central America: Honduras. British Museum, (one specimen).

In the system this little fairy "Erycina ridens" may perhaps come near E. Mantus, Cramer, Pap. Ex. i. 74, pi. 47, f. F. G: the antennae in Mantus are much more slender, especially at the end.

Hereafter a group may be found resembling this, when perhaps a careful examination of its nervures, head and legs, as well as of the structure and habit of the larva, may mark it out as a subgenus of Erycinidae—(Agathina), the type being E. (A.) Margaretta, a name given by me from the French appellation of the daisy or gowan (Bellis perennis, Lin., Marguerite of the French), the petals of which somewhat resemble in shape the longish white marks on the upper wings of this little butterfly. A daisy growing by the road-side near Whiting Bay, Isle of Arran, in August last, particularly attracted my notice, as it seemed to smile on me as I passed. The beautifully simple lines of Charles Lamb, "To Margaret W——." afterwards struck me; and partly in allusion to the name, but chiefly to the petals of Burns' "wee, modest, crimson-tipped flower," I have named this pretty little Honduras Erycina.—Adam White; August 5, 1842.



Singular case of monstrosity in the Antennæ of a Beetle. The figure in the margin represents the head of a Prionidous beetle, closely allied to, if not identical with, the Macrotoma Senegalensis (Prionus Senegalensis, Olivier), in which the antennas are monstrously developed, the elongated third joint being forked and emitting from the end of each "prong" a part of a distinct antennule. In one case the third joint is cleft nearly to the base, in the other only at the tip. In Asmuss' 'Monstrositates Coleopterorum' this instance would, of course, be arranged in his third division, "monstra per excessum," and under his section C, "Partes supernumerariæ antennarum," answering in some respects to the monstrosity he copies from Doumerc of Carabus auratus. In Helops caeruleus, M. Seringe, in a paper read before the Linnean Society of Lyon, pointed out the occurrence of an example with three joints proceeding from the fifth joint of one of the antennae; but as far as I am aware, no instance has been registered before this, of the existence of monstrosity on both sides, the same joint in both cases being the "freak-originator."

The Probænops described and figured in 'The Entomologist,' at