( 445 ) 



" America, West and East Africa, Madagascar, and India," nine altogether, and 

 brings in liis first subgroup the North American ajax, the Central American 

 philoluiis, and the Celebensian rhesus. If one selects ont of some hundreds of forms 

 of Cosmodesmus just these three as being most close!)' allied with one another, there 

 must surely be some very strong evidence for the correctness of this selection, as it 

 is a priori highly improbable that a t!elebensian Paijilio should have its nearest 

 relative in the Nearctic fauna. It has been noticed in Artbildung I. that the 

 association of i-hesus with ujax and the African colonna and antheus looks strange, 

 but we are told {I.e. p. 194) that " the certainty of the derivation of all is the more 

 surprising." The rhesus question throws so much light upon the kind of treatment 

 of the Papilios in Artbildung, that I hope to be excused to refer to Elmer's evidence 

 and arguments more extensively: — 



(1) " The explanation of the relationship of rhesus meets with difficulties from 

 geographical arguments. . . . There are no si)ecies in its country, namely in (!elebes, 

 with which rhesus could be brought in immediate connection. The only possibility 

 would be, that it had originated from a form similar to leostlienes, herMOcrates, 

 nomius, or aristeus, or a form which was much more ancestral than these. . . . One 

 must kee]) in view the possibility that, in spite of the great distance between America 

 and East India, eggs, larvae, or imagines of ajnx or sjiecies similar to ajax had 

 been transplanted to Celebes, if one does not prefer to have recourse for an ex- 

 planation to immediate relations between India and America. Apart from a past 

 connection between America and Asia, which is severed by the Behring Strait, there 

 would come into consideration the past connection between western North America 

 (Alaska) and the Suuda Islands still indicated by the chains of the Aleutian and 

 Kurile Islands, Japan, the Liu-Kin Islands, and the Philippines, and by the 

 relatively moderate depth of the sea ou the whole line " (I. pp. 235, 230). 



(2) " The only geographical crime, with which Mr. Haase believes he must 

 reproach me, is that I bring the Celebensian rhesus to American species, because its 

 pattern points absolutely to these, so that I called it, with express regard to the 

 contradiction in geographical distribution, a form that came accidentally, resp. was 

 miscarried, from America to_ India" (II. p. 63). 



(3) " The reproach of Mr. Rothschild against my Artbildung und Ver- 

 wandtschaft bei den Schmetterlingen I., ' that I had apparently employed too 

 small a material to enable me to avoid grave errors in respect to the relationsliip of 

 the various Papilios,' is essentially founded on the circumstance — as far as I can 

 make ont from his paper — that 1 bring this Butterfly [/-". rhesu.i\ not to the Indian 

 cmticrates-aristeus, but, as a probably immigrated form, to the American qjax. 

 What criticisms Mr. Rothschild has to offer in other directions relate only to 

 difi'erences in our opinion about the delimitation of species and similar matters, and 

 I perfectly agree that even grave mistakes may innocently occur to somebody who 

 is not in a position to have such collections at his disposal as Mr. Rothschild. I 

 should, therefore, be the more grateful for the indication of an error, the greater the 

 mistake were. But it must actually be proved, else there remains only nnjnst 

 reproach [black type mine]. The same objections in respect to my opinion about 

 rhesus I have already rejected in a reply to E. Haase. Against Mr. Rothschild 

 I must remark that I bring rhesus to 'ijax not only on account of the number of the 

 bands, which is six instead of seven, but also ou account of numerous other characters 

 in pattern (f i., also connection of bands vii. and viii. behind [it should read viii. 

 andix.], also characters of the underside, ornamental band, etc.), also on account of 



