Seitz - All the species which belong here are distinguished by their size and have a heavy, awkward flight,the weak muscles being evidently unable to control the enormous wings.

Even a moderate breeze drives them helplessly hither and thither like pieces of light paper and probably on this account they never leave the shelter of the woods.

The species of Hestia are among the largest butterflies, and they even attract the attention of the natives, who in India call them "spectres" or "ghosts", the Malays on Celebes give them the expressive name "surat", i.e. letter, and the Javanese that of "kupo kertas", i.e. paper-butterflv.

The butterflies are mostly gregarious, are fond of following the course of small streams, above which they float up and down, also frequently gambol round high flowering forest-trees and love to settle in the late afternoon on projecting twigs, mostly in pairs, so that one might think they were beginning family life.

The Hestia differ from all other Danaids in the broad and always sharply armed valve, which is coarsely dentate or provided with widely projecting points, and form a group by themselves.