_Godart._--Pap. Helenor, _Cramer_, Pl. 86, fig. A, B; _Herbst. Pap._
Pl. 26, fig. 1, 2; _Esper. Papillon’s Exotiques_, Pl. 42, fig. 2.
This affords an example of that section of the genus in which the upper
wings are more or less concave on the outer margin, and the inferior
pair without any prolongation behind. They are almost exclusively South
American. _M. Helenor_ expands from four to five inches; surface black,
with a broad band of silvery blue or violet blue, extending from the
middle of the anterior margin to the anal extremity; sometimes rather
narrow and well defined on the inner edge, at other times enlarged
to within a short distance of the base of the wings; at the anterior
extremity of this band, on the costa, there is an oblique white patch,
and beyond it, on the upper wings, a single row of small white spots in
the male, and two in the female. The secondary wings have an indistinct
row of red crescents near the hinder margin, and the sinuosities in
all the wings are white. The colour beneath is dark brown, the upper
wings with three large ocelli having a white pupil surrounded with
ferruginous and violet, the iris yellow, enclosed in a green circle
which has a crescent of the same colour on the inner side; under wings
with four similar ocelli, three of them contiguous, the interior one
insulated. Towards the base of both wings are several transverse
flexuose green stripes, and along the outer edge three greyish lines,
more or less interrupted with red, especially in the hinder wings. The
body is black above and brown beneath.
[Illustration: