The colour of the surface in the above species is deep brown, darkest on the upper wings, which have a wide fulvous sinuated band, rather beyond the middle, commencing at the costa and reaching nearly to the opposite side, where it terminates in a point: the costa is likewise yellowish, and towards the apex there is a round white spot. Posterior wings of a lighter hue round the margin than on the disk, and near the hinder extremity an indistinct row of whitish points. On the under side all the wings are light brown and ash colour, covered with short waved lines of dark brown, and bearing several continuous transverse bands of the same colour, and towards the hinder margin of the inferior pair a row of pale rounded spots. Body brown; prothorax with a fulvous mark. The caterpillar is very beautifully coloured. The body is reddish, inclining to violet, the sides of the belly and the legs dull yellow. Along the back there is a broad yellow band formed of confluent lozenge-shaped spots, each of them having a dusky line in the centre: head ferruginous, bordered and rayed with yellow. The anal fork is grey, with black ciliæ. This caterpillar feeds on the leaves of the sugar-cane, and changes into a pale brown chrysalis dotted with black, from which the butterfly emerges in about eleven days. The insect is a native of Surinam. [Illustration: PLATE 24. _1. 2. Helicopis Gnidus._ } Surinam. _3. Erycina Octavius._ } _Lizars sc._] HELICOPIS GNIDUS[36]. PLATE XXIV. Figs. 1 and 2, _Fem._ Hesperia Gnidus, _Fabr._--Pap. Endymion, _Cramer_, Pl. 224, C, D, (Male,) E, F, (Fem).--Erycina Gnidus, _Godart_; _Stoll’s Supp._ Pl. 4, fig. 5, A, (Cater), 5, B, (Chrysalis). The genus Helicopis was proposed by Fabricius in his _Systema Glossatarum_, and he refers to the species above mentioned as one of its typical forms. Although its characters are sufficiently distinctive, it was long confounded with other groups to which it has little relation. It belongs to that section of the diurnal lepidoptera in which the caterpillars are short and depressed, having some resemblance to an _oniscus_, whence they are called onisciform. The palpi are rather long and slender, and the terminal joint is nearly naked or free from scales. In Helicopis the antennæ terminate in a slightly curved club: the anterior legs are much shorter than the others and clothed with hairs; hinder margin of the anterior wings convex and entire, the corresponding margin of the posterior with six linear tails, the central one much longer than the rest; discoidal cell of the posterior wings open behind; claws very minute. Caterpillar thickly clothed with soft hairs, the chrysalis suspended by the tail, and having a band round the middle.