292 ME. P. II. GOSSE ON THE CLASPING-OKGANS 



bristles, and no distinct "double teeth." Of the other constituent parts of this organ 

 I must speak with a measure of doubt. In the first specimen of this noble species that 

 I examined, the parts already mentioned were of a dirty drab or " whity-brown " hue; 

 but below them descended what I supposed to be a symmetrical keel, of pearly white 

 substance, pellucid, almost semitransparent ; very firm, almost cartilaginous, in texture. 



But was this, indeed, the keel? For, with a very slight touch it came away, and 

 then seemed to be not an animal tissue at all, but amorphous .substance. 



And, in another specimen of this same species, the scaphium appeared of the form 

 which I have with greal care delineated in figs. 7 and 8. Here the keel, orwhat I identified 

 as such, though of unusual shape and direction, was in the general plane of the organ, 

 with an open expanded extremity, hounded on each side by an ovate knob, and carrying 

 the usual lobes on its upper surface, without elevated crests of aristate points. Imme- 

 diately beneath, and even in contact with it, but in direct position, was seen the trumpet- 

 mouthed penis, with a horny linger-like tip. 



The examination of this second specimen augmented my doubts of the nature of what 

 I had seen in the first ; and reminded me of what 1 have recorded in Saliphron, 

 Darsius, &c. But whether what I saw in Brookeana was of the same nature, and, if so, 

 whether it was an excretion from the penis, I have noi yet sufficient light to determine. 



N.B. In fig. 8, the left valve and its harpe are indicated in faint outline, to show that 

 the point of the scaphium-keel came just within the serrated edges of the two closed and 

 opposed harpes. 



Ornithoptera Amphrystjs, Cram. (Plate XXVII. tigs. 9-11.) 



Valve pure white, on the golden-yellow abdomen; well-developed, large; form that of 

 a semicircle, with the dorsal side cut away obliquely, terminating in a strongly projecting 

 point. Both the margins are fringed with white hair-scales, the ventral narrowly, the 

 dorsal very broadly and densely, its edge forming a right angle with a point in the middle. 

 The finger-point of the valve is unusually large, and slightly incurved, so that, w-hen the 

 valves are m situ, the two points cross. I have no reason to believe that these points 

 have prehensile power. 



On removing a valve, I could find no trace of a harpe ; and when — suspecting that 

 this might be accidental, the result of a morbid atrophy — I carefully examined another 

 specimen, in perfect condition, with well-formed abdomen, I still found nothing to break 

 the uniformly concave surface of the valve. Only, at the base, near the dorsal side, there 

 was, in each, a pear-shaped area, occupied by a multitude of very fine and close corruga- 

 tions in parallel lines. But, afterward, when I was examining the uncus and its accom- 

 paniments, the mystery was solved. I observed a long black slender wire, incurved at 

 the tip, projecting from the interior, nearly horizontally, below the scaphium; which I could 

 not at all account for. Tracing this to its origin, I found that it belonged to that one of 

 the valves that yet remained in situ ; that the place of the corrugated area was normally 

 occupied by a curved plate of polished brown chitine of trapezoidal figure, from the dorso- 

 basal angle of which proceeded the long curved wire, of extreme tenuity throughout. 



