LYCÆNA Dispar.
As considerable misconception appears to exist regarding the type of the tenuirostral or vermiform family of the Diurnal Lepidoptera, we shall endeavour to illustrate this subject. Our concluding number is accordingly devoted to the genus Polyommatus of Latrielle, and its subordinate types or sub-genera. These compose, what we have elsewhere defined, a natural and perfect group; (North. Zool. 2, 288) inasmuch as it has been tested by the analogies, and conformed by the representations, which it bears to innumerable others, both in the Annulose and vertebrated circles. According to this analysis, both Lycæna and Polyommatus, strictly so termed, instead of being types either of families or sub-families, are of one and the same genus: which genus, moreover, is but the portion of the aberrant group of the Theclinæ. The typical forms of the genus Erycina, exclusively confined to Tropical America, constitute, in fact, the pre-eminent perfection of the family in question.
LYCÆNA dispar.
The Large British Copper.
Family Erycinidæ. Sub-family Theclinæ. Sw. Genus Polyommatus.
Generic Character.
Wings (typically) obtuse, rounded; anterior having the external margin shorter than the posterior: posterior wings entire or nearly so: destitute both of filiform caudal appendages, and of metallic anal spots. Nob.
Sub-Generic Character.
Posterior wings obsoletely dentated, particularly at the anal angle: club of the antennæ short, spatulate; palpi hairy, the last joint lengthened, acute, naked, obliquely vertical. Type. L. Phlæas.
Specific Character.
Wings coppery: the male with two discoid black dots on the anterior, and one on the posterior wings: club of the antennæ elongated and fusiform. (Aberrant.)
Papilio Hippothoë. Lewen's Pap. pl. 40.
Pap. dispar. Haworth. Lep. Brit. p. 40. Stevens. Brit. Ent. 1. p. 82. Pl. 3
As Lycæna represents the Nymphalidæ, or sub-typical family of the Diurnal Butterflys, so is it the sub-typical form of the genus Polyommatus. Its geographic range is wide, being extended to the temperate latitudes of both hemispheres. The largest British species is that now figured, from the identical specimens mentioned by Lewin.