26 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 
species was common enough in all museums and private 
collections. It had been described by Linneus, Fabricius, and 
Gmelin; pictured by Petiver, Seba, Valentin, Knorr, Merian, 
Cramer, Olivier, Hiibner, and others;—so that no exotic insect 
was better known than “Le Géant des Papillons.” It is, too, a 
wide-spread species, ranging over the south and east half of 
Asia, continental and insular;—common on the slopes of the 
Himalayas, and all through India to the points of both peninsulas ; 
abundant in China, as I have already intimated; scattered over 
the isles of the Archipelago, from Java to the Moluccas, to 
Borneo and the Philippines :—a range of 35° of latitude, and 55° 
of longitude. 
As is often the case with animals of extensive habitat, this 
magnificent Insect is subject to considerable variety. The 
variations range in two groups, according as the curious windows 
in the wings are single, or accompanied by small side-windows, 
The possession of these glassy areas, of definite forms, and 
usually set in dark frames, is highly characteristic of the 
Saturniade, the noblest family of the Moths; in some, indeed, 
reduced to little more than a mere slit of glassy membrane, as in 
our English Emperor Moth (Saturnia carpini), the only native 
example of the family ; but in many taking large dimensions, and 
remarkable forms, whence these Moths are called by the French 
Porte-miroirs. Few have these windows more conspicuous * 
than the grand species before us. 
Common as Attacus Atlas has been in all the museums of 
Europe for more than a century, our familiarity with it has been 
limited to its adult, imago condition: we have known it very well 
as a Moth; but, in other respects, not at all. What were the 
earlier stages of this noble insect? ‘That the caterpillar would 
be generally like that of our own Emperor, we might confidently 
conjecture from analogy; that it would spin a cocoon of silk in 
which it would pass its pupa-life, there could be no doubt; but 
the dimensions, colours, and forms, of these, in detail, no one 
knew, in Europe at least. Some light irradiated the subject, 
* Tn two species figured and described by Mr. Westwood in Proc. Zool. Soe. Lond. 
for 1849 and 1853,—Attac. Mythimnia of Port Natal, and Att. Zacateca of Bogota, 
the fenestre are larger in proportion than in Atlas, though the insects themselves 
are much smaller; the latter of the two being indeed a tiny Attacus, though most 
elegant in form aud rich in colour. 
