ILLUSTRATIVE OF NATURAL SELECTION. 141 



sometimes even straying into the narrow bazaars or 

 covered markets of the city. In Java the golden- 

 dusted Arjuna may often be seen at damp places on 

 the roadside in the mountain districts, in company 

 with Sarpedon, Bathycles, and Agamemnon, and less 

 frequently the beautiful swallow-tailed Antiphates. 

 In the more luxuriant parts of these islands one can 

 hardly take a morning's walk in the neighbourhood 

 of a town or village without seeing three or four 

 species of Papilio, and often twice that number. No 

 less than 130 species of the family are now known 

 to inhabit the Archipelago, and of these ninety-six 

 were collected by myself. Thirty species are found 

 in Borneo, being the largest number in any one island, 

 twenty-three species having been obtained by myself 

 in the vicinity of Sarawak; Java has twenty-eight 

 species ; Celebes twenty-four, and the Peninsula of 

 Malacca, twenty- six species. Further east the num- 

 bers decrease ; Batchian producing seventeen, and New 

 Guinea only fifteen, though this number is certainly 

 too small, owing to our present imperfect knowledge 

 of that great island. 



Definition of the word Species. 



In estimating these numbers I have had the usual 

 difficulty to encounter, of determining what to con- 

 sider species and what varieties. The Malayan region, 

 consisting of a large number of islands of generally 

 great antiquity, possesses, compared to its actual area, 

 a great number of distinct forms, often indeed dis- 



