RHOPALOCERA MALAVANA. 323 



biological value. Papilio has its species existing in what may almost be called small 

 "coteries," and thus has always been divided with facility into groups, which possess the 

 advantages of genera, minus the true structural definitions. Divided in such groups the genus 

 has been studied by some authors (as subsequently detailed) who have done so nuxch to enrich 

 our lepidopteral literature by a number of epoch-marking memoirs, and as the name I'ainlio 

 is so universally known and used in connection witii these butterllios, tlu' writer will certainly 

 pause before supporting a system which, though correct in classificatory practice, is likely to 

 add new terrors to those numerous observers and lovers of nature who give us so mauv facts, 

 and receive from cabinet entomologists so many divisional husks in return. 



Taking the three genera Ornithoptera, PapiUo, and Leptocircus as representing this 

 subfamily (for these alone are found in this fauna) we can (jbtain an approximate idea as to the 

 number of species known in entomological literature. In 1S52 Mr. G. K. Gray published his 

 Catalogue of the rapiUoiiida-, and enumerated 337 species; in 1864 C. and K. Felder, in their 

 * Species Lopidopterorum — Papilionid*,' were able to give the names of 493 species, whilst 

 subsequently Mr. Kirby, in his Catalogue, issued in 1871 and his supplemental list to 1877, 

 only recognises 398 species.* The Malayan region is exceedingly rich in rapilionina;, and 

 this, as Mr. Wallace has pointed out, can be readily appreciated by " con;paring the number of 

 species found in the different troi^ical regions of the earth." t The genus Papilio is almost 

 ubiquitous, but Ornithoptera and Leptocircus are confined to the Eastern tropics. 



During the last few years great attention has been paid to the anal structure of insects, 

 as a guide to specific and generic division. I In this country two memoirs describing these 

 organs in the Rhopalocera have been recently published. The one by Dr. Buchanan White, 

 "On the Male Genital Armature in the European Rhopalocera," § and the other by 

 Mr. P. H. Gosse, " On the Clasping Organs ancillary to Generation in certain Groups of 

 the Lepidoptera," II which is confined to the I'apHioniiue alone. Dr. White's studies led him 

 to the conclusion that in the structure of these parts " not only generic, but in many (if not in 

 every) species good specific characters are to l)e found." Mr. Gosse, however, does not speak 

 in this unqualified sense, for though he observes that out of tlie number of specimens he had 

 examined he had not found " any two species whose apparatus is alike, or even so nearly alike 

 that a moment's observation is not sufiicieut to show the difference," yet he adds : — " It might 

 seem that, by the aid of organs so uniformly present, so easily examined, and so varied 



'■■■ The discrepancy between the figures of the Felders and Kirby is due to the (Uffereut esthuate of the vahie of species 

 hekl by the authors, many which are specifically reco.i,'uised and described by the first being siuijily treated as \arieties by the 

 second. Even then too uiueh statistical reUance must" not be placed on Mr. Kirby's estimate, as hi his original vohmie ot 1871 

 he has critlcaUy enumerated the species, whilst in his Supplement he has merely recorded the recently described species. 

 This author has since estimated the species of the genus PapiUo alone as about OUU (CasseU's Nat. Hist. vol. vi. p. .jU). 



Of other collections we have the following published information :— The Natural History Museum at Leydeu, lu ItSGH, 

 contained, according to SneUen van VoUenhoven, 158 species (Tijd. Ent. hi. pp. 70—88). In 187'.) ihi-ec other Catalogues weie 

 pubUshed. The first refers to the species coutamed iu the coUectiou of Mon. Ch. Uberthiu- at Hennes, and 34:J species are 

 recorded (' Etudes d'Entomologie,' Quatr. Livr.). The second is Mr. Kh-bys • Cat. CoU. Diuni. Lep. formed by the late 

 W. C. Hewitson,' in wliich 339 species are catalogued. The thml refers to the collection iu the Museum ol Science aiul .Vrt, 

 Dubhu, is likewise made by Mr. Kirbv. and eiumierates 220 sjiecies (Scient. Proc. Hoy. Dubl. Soc. 18<0.). Of pui-ely local 

 collections that contained in the late Museum of the East India Company may be mentioned, which lumibered b2 species 

 collected in the Indo-Malayan region alone (Horsf. & Moore, Cat. Lep. Mus. E. 1. C. vol. i. 18D7. 



t Trans. Linn. Soc. vol. xxv. p. 27 (1865). 



I This has been recently and exhaustively studied and described in the Trichoptera of the European fauna by 

 Mr. E. M'Lachlan, and iu the Bhynchotal subfamily Gydninm by Dr. V. Signoret. 



§ Trans. Linn. Soc. ser. 2, Zool. vol. i. p. 357 (1877). || Ibid. m>\. ii. p. 205 (1883). 



