206 NORTH AMERICAN INSECTS. 
The Genus Papilio. 
This genus, called by Linnzeus Anights or Chevaliers, com- 
prises mostly large butterflies with broad wings, and gener- 
ally with’a long swallow-like tail at the extremity of the 
hind wings. Some of these butterflies have red spots, like 
stars, on the breast, similar to the decorations of sovereigns 
and princes, as well as of the policemen of New York, one 
of whom, on account of the star on his blue uniform coat, 
was once mistaken for his Royal Highness the Elector of 
Hesse Cassel by a newly-arrived Hessian emigrant, who at 
once began to revenge himself for past oppressions by at- 
tacking the policeman like Don Quixote, the barber, with 
Mambrino’s helmet. Linnzeus designated these butterflies 
by the name of Trojan Knights, and those without the red 
spot he called Greek Knights. 
Notwithstanding their usual large size and elegant dress 
they are often seen looking very shabbily; for their colors 
soon fade, and their wings get torn by their flying through 
thorny bushes when chased by birds, when they look very 
much like an old bachelor fop who has dissipated his prop- 
erty, and appears with threadbare clothes —a laughing- 
stock to all the young girls. 
These aerial knights, some would doubtless say, are of no 
use to man; but the adnfirer of Nature, as we have before 
said, never thinks any of her works useless. He can al- 
ways see in them something that is attractive—nay, that is 
positively useful—either in the moral lesson they teach or 
in the practical benefits derived from them, directly or in- 
directly. Thus these butterflies, although they do not di- 
rectly minister to the animal wants of man, yet have always 
so beautified the country with their splendid colors and 
ethereal forms that any person of soul or sense would find 
something wanting to complete the beauty of Nature’s sum- 
mer face, did he not see them sporting in our gardens, and 
