LUCIA limbaria.
This, which appears the most aberrant type of the genus, immediately reminds the student of a dark coloured Erycina or a Phalæna, both of which families, as being the Heliconian or Erycinian type of Polyommatus, it truly represents. It is at once known from Erina, by its very peculiar palpi, and by its more lengthened wings. The antennæ of three species now before us, present a remarkable difference. In two of these, the club is compressed and spatulate, like that of Erina; but in the third, here figured, it has the cylindrical form belonging to Naïs. Which of these forms is typical, must at present, be undecided; but there cannot be a stranger link of connection between Lucia and Naïs, than the fact of this species borrowing, as it were, the cylindrical club of the latter. Without such a link, in short, the series would be imperfect.
LUCIA limbaria.
Brown-winged Blue.
Sub-fam. Theclinæ. Genus Polyommatus. Lat. Sub-genus Lucia. Sw.
Sub-Generic Character.
Wings horizontally lengthened, entire: palpi very slender, ciliate with long hairs, the last joint very minute, scarcely distinguishable. Antennæ with a lengthened club, either cylindrical or compressed. Colours obscure, moth-like.
Specific Character.
Wings above brown, disk of the anterior fulvous, with two brown spots above, and three beneath, encircled with white: posterior beneath varied with grey and white, with a central band of square brown spots.
Hesp. Lucanus? Fab. Ent. Syst. 3, 1, p. 322. Donovan's Ind. Ins. pl. 43, f. 4?
Mus. Nost.
As we cannot satisfactorily determine whether the types here figured of Lucia and Erina are described in books, we have been compelled to regard them as unnamed. This, and the two other species we possess, are all from Australia. On bringing the genus Polyommatus to analogical tests, the only demonstration of a natural group, we find the sub-genera representing the families of the Diurnal Lepidoptera, in the following manner:—1. Typical, Polyommatus, Papilionidæ.—2. Sub-Typical, Lycæna, Nymphalidæ.—3. Aberrant, Naïs-Hesperidæ, Lucia-Erycidinæ, and Erina-Satyridæ.