PAPILIONID^. 



droop, so as to bring the apex below the level of the body. P. Ascanius is stated by Beske to have a slow flight, and 

 to suck the honey from flowers without alighting on them. 



The Geographical Range of the species is often rather limited, but a few are spread over a very wide extent of 

 country. P. Machaon is found from Sweden to the Mediterranean, from Siberia to Central India, from England to 

 Japan. P. Epius extends from the Himalayas to Van Diemen's Land ; P. Warns, from Honduras to Rio Janeiro. 

 Other species, as P. Hospiton, P. Homerus, P. Phorbanta, and P. disparilis, are more confined. The two latter 

 are found only in the islands of Mauritius and Bourbon ; each confined to its own island, each the only species found 

 there. 



Europe possesses only four species of this genus, and two of these occur also in Asia and Africa ; Australia, 

 generally poor in diurnal Lepidoptera, is known to possess twelve species ; Africa, thirty-five ; Asia, one hundred ; and 

 America, one hundred and twenty-two. 



Neither Europe nor Australia offers any type peculiar to its own limits. The European species belong to two 

 groups, one of which has its representative in every part of the globe where the genus occurs ; the other, in all save 

 Australia. The Australian species, except P. Anactus and P. Erectheus, are of forms dispersed throughout Asia, and 

 in some cases more widely ; and the species last-named belongs to a group common to all the easternmost islands of the 

 Indian seas ; the former is closely allied to an African type. 



Asia possesses some very well-marked and peculiar forms ; as, for instance, P. Polyeuctes, P. Evan, and their 

 respective allies. The beautiful group with black wings, powdered and banded with green and gold, and sometimes 

 ornamented with blue and crimson markings, of which P. Arcturus and P. Paris are well known representatives, is 

 purely Asiatic, and seems most to abound in Northern India. Africa possesses an analogous but very distinct group, 

 of which P. Nireus affords a good example. It has two other groups peculiar to itself, of which P. Latreillanus and 

 P. Zenobius may be considered the types. 



The most striking American group is that numerous one to which P. Idanis and Polymetus belong, so numerous in 

 all the tropical portions of America as to constitute nearly one-sixth of the known species of the genus. There are 

 several smaller groups, also confined to the New World. 



In the Arrangement of the Species I have nearly followed Dr. Boisduval, but have made some changes to bring those 

 having similar larva? more nearly together, commencing with the species which in this respect are nearest to 

 Ornithoptera. Some species which I have not seen, will probably be found slightly misplaced, and, it may happen, 

 that even now the sexes in some instances are left as separate species, especially amongst the allies of P. Proteus and 

 Polymetus. In these each sex of nearly every species has received a separate name. This has arisen from the variation 

 both in colour and form for which they are remarkable. In general the males have the anterior wings more 

 elongate and acute than the females ; the posterior wings marked with a palmate crimson spot, or a very abbreviated 

 band of the same colour, often splendidly opalescent, which in the females is replaced by a transverse band of pale 

 hue, and never opalescent. The anterior wings in the males often have one or more round white, or greenish white 

 spots on the disc ; these, not unfrequently, are followed by a short greenish band, always wanting in the other sex. 

 The spot or spots on the disc are generally found in a slightly different position in the females. It is needful to 

 mention these facts to justify the placing, as sexes of the same species, insects which all other authors have considered 

 to be quite distinct. 



The following list contains more than fifty species which are not to be found in the first volume of Dr. Boisduval's 

 Species General. Probably an equal number yet remain undescribed in the various European collections. 



PAPILIO Linn. 



1. P. Antimachus Drury, III. 1. 1. (1782). 



Fab. Ent. Si/st. in. i. 11. n. 81. (1793). 

 Godt. Enc. M. ix. 28. n. 8. (1819). 

 Soisd. Sp. Gen. i. 188. n. 1. (1836). 

 Sierra Leone. 



2. P. Ridleyanus White, Ann. Nat. Hist, new ser. xn. 26-1. 



(1843). 

 Congo. B. M. 



3. P. Cyrnws Boisd. Sp. Gen. i. 23Q. n. 63. (1836). 



Madagascar. B. M. 



