Curious Butterflies. 139 



cur in butterflies. The second group are much more extraor- 

 dinary, and would never be supposed to be the same insect, 

 since the hind wings are lengthened out into large spoon- 

 shaped tails, no rudiment of which is ever to be perceived in 

 the males or in the ordinary form of females. These tailed 

 females are never of the dark and blue-glossed tints which 

 prevail in the male, and often occur in the females of the same 

 form, but are invariably ornamented with stripes and patches of 

 white or buff, occupying the larger part of the surface of the 

 hind wings. This peculiarity of coloring led me to discover 

 that this extraordinary female closely resembles (when flying) 



PAPILIO COON. 



another butterfly of the same genus, but of a different group 

 (Papilio coon) ; and that we have here a case of mimicry sim- 

 ilar to those so well illustrated and explained by Mr. Bates. ^ 

 That the resemblance is not accidental is sufliciently proved 

 by the fact that in the North of India, where Papilio coon is 

 replaced by an allied form (Papilio Doubledayi) having red 

 spots in place of yellow, a closely-allied species or variety oi 

 Papilio memnon (P. androgens), has the tailed female also red- 

 spotted. The use and reason of this resemblance appears to 

 be, that the butterflies imitated belong to a section of the 

 genus Papilio which from some cause or other are not attacked 



' Trans. Linn. Soc. vol. xviii. p. 495; "Naturalist on the Amazons." vol. i. 

 p. 290. 



