igS 



Marvels of Insect Life, 



of this species in Borneo, where, he says, they " are generally most numerous by 

 rivers, or in sunny places by the dry beds of streams, and, singularly enough, are 

 most abundant during the cool, wet monsoon." He says their strong and swift 

 flight resembles that of birds. " One lovely fellow, fully six inches across the 

 wings, settled on my boot as I remained motionless watching it." This butterfly 

 appears to like a high temperature, for H. O. Forbes, records that, in the neigh- 

 bourhood of hot springs in Sumatra, its " favourite resort was the stones that cropped 



out above the hot water, and 

 which were of a temperature but 

 littk' below 130° F." 



Another fine species is the 

 Crcesus bird-wing ^ of the Malay 

 Archipelago, whose colours are 

 chiefly orange and black in the 

 male, and brown with lighter 

 spots of grey and dull yellow in 

 the larger female. This species 

 was first captured and made 

 known by the late Alfred Russel 

 Wallace, during his memorable 

 natural history exploration of the 

 Archipelago, and it was in the 

 Island of Batchian that he came 

 across it. His account of the 

 incident is well worth quoting as 

 showing that the pursuit of such 

 small game as Insects is not 

 without its possibility of exciting 

 situations. He says : " During 

 my first walk into the forest at 

 Batchian I had seen sitting on 

 a leaf, out of reach, an immense 

 butterfly of a dark colour, marked 

 with white and yellow spots. I 

 saw at once that it was a female 

 of a new species of ornithoptera, 

 or ' bird-winged ' butterfly, the 

 pride of the Fastern tropics. One 

 day about the beginning of 

 January, I found a beautiful shrub with large, white, leafy bracts and yellow 

 flowers . . . and saw one of these noble Insects hovering over it, but 

 it was too (juick for me, and ilew awa\-. The next (la\- I went again 

 to the same shrub, and succeeded in catching a lenuilc, and the da\- after a fine 

 male. I found it to be as I had expected— a perfectly new and most magnificent 

 species, and one of the most gorgeously coloured butterflies in the world. Fine 



1 Ornithoptera crocsus. 



I'll,. I,, I,: \IIaiiiUl F.ii^tut. 



Caterpillar of Pegasus 13ird-\ving. 



As might be expected from the size of tlie butterlhes, tlie caterpillars of tlie 

 birci-wings are large. On their backs they bear fleshy spines, and from behiml 

 the head they can at will protrude bright', scented organs known as osmateria. 



