We believe this group is restricted to tropical America, where it probably represents the genuine _Pieres_, (as defined at pl. 69,) of the Old World. The present species is subject to much variation in the size, proportion, and colour of its spots: the white is sometimes pale yellow, and the rosy becomes of a deeper and brighter hue. * * * * * * [Illustration: PELEUS. _1. Gentius. 2. Æacus_] PELEUS Æacus. ---- Family Hesperidæ. GENERIC CHARACTER. _Antennæ_ not hooked, the club formed into a long, slender, fusiform arch. _Wings_ with both surfaces alike, horizontally divaricated when at rest; posterior rounded, entire; broader from the base to the anal angle, than to the exterior margin. Type. Hesp. Peleus. _Fab._ ---- SPECIFIC CHARACTER. _Wings deep brownish black; anterior with a redish transverse band, united to a spot of the same, and tipt with a sub-hyaline band of redish orange._ Hesp. Peleus. _Fab. Cramer, pl. 284, f. F._ ---- Entomologists, from being acquainted only with the habits of the European species of this family, represent the _Hesperidæ_ as resting with only the hinder wings elevated: This is altogether a mistake. Some groups, indeed, assume this position when basking in the sun, or taking food; but even these, when fairly at rest, erect their wings in the ordinary manner: a fact we have repeatedly witnessed. Not so, however, with the group we now illustrate: and which is peculiar to South America. These insects rest _with all the four wings expanded_; and hide themselves during the meridian heat, on the under side of broad leaves, in the deep forests. From never appearing exposed, this species long escaped our search, but having once discovered this singular part of its economy, we captured it in abundance. It probably feeds, like many of the _Sphingides_, or Hawk Moths, in the morning and evening, but its haunts were too far from our habitation, to allow of ascertaining this point. ---- PELEUS Gentius. _Anterior wings black, with three yellow bars, posterior yellow, with a simple black border._ Hesp. Gentius. _Fab. Cramer, pl. 179, f. C._ ---- Our specimens of this very rare insect were captured by Dr. Langsdorff, in the interior of Southern Brazil, the colours of the under surface of the wings are the same as those of the upper. * * * * * * [Illustration: MALACONOTUS _atro-coccineus_. _Black & crimson Shrike._] MALACONOTUS atro-coccineus. _Burchell's Shrike._ ---- GENERIC CHARACTER, &c. See Pl. 71. ---- SPECIFIC CHARACTER. _Black, beneath crimson: lesser wing covers banded with white, greater covers and lesser quills with a broad, white, longitudinal stripe._ Malaconotus atro-coccineus. _Burchell, Zool. Journ. 1. p. 461. Pl. 18._ Mus. D. Burchell. ----