to an Insect Fauna ofthe Amazon Vulley. 339 



larvaj feeding on the orange tree at Santarem ; the larva is figured by Stoll, 

 pi. l,f. 2. 



Group 5. P. JEneas, and allies. 

 This, the most numerous group of American Papilioiies, is distingui^;bed fiom 

 all the others by several important characters. 1 he antennae are very long and 

 slender; gradually thickened and strongly curved upwards, at the tip: the ab- 

 dominal fold of the liind wings is very strongly developed, soft in texture and 

 turned upwards, enclosing generally a mass of silky, down-like pubescence. 1 he 

 style of colouration is very similar throughout the whole of the species ; viz., black 

 ground, with white or green spots on the fore wing, and crimson or yellow bells or 

 spots on the hind wing. In habits they all agree in being exclusively frequeniers 

 of the shades of the forest. They are peculiarly the creatures of those vast, vnried 

 and humid forests which clothe the wide-spreading equatorial plains and every 

 sweltering river-valley of tropical America, from the river Plata (about 28° S. 

 lat.) to Mexico (about 16" or 18° N. lat.). Southern and Central Bi-azil yield 

 five species, Columbia with Peru about thirteen, Central America and Mexico 

 about five ; whilst the Amazon valley with Guiana yield about twenty-two, most 

 of which are exclusively found there. I believe no species has hitherto been 

 found in the West Indian Islands (Trinidad, which is supposed to yield one, must 

 be considered merely a detached portion of the main land ) ; and of the seventeen 

 Cuban species o( Papilio, enumerated by Lucas in Sagra's " Ilistoirede Cuba," no 

 one belongs to this group. In the forests of the Amazons they abound both in 

 species and individuals, each of the subdivisions of the country yielding its 

 peculiar species and local varieties. 'J'hey are of rather slow flight, and are gene- 

 rally seen threading their way amongst the lower trees and bushes in the more 

 humid and luxuriant parts of the forest, being most abundant in the periods of 

 the year between the diy and the wet seasons. Sometimes they mount to con- 

 siderable elevations, attracted by the conspicuous flowers of climbing plants. The 

 females always fly nearer the ground, and slower than the males ; de|;ositing their 

 eggs, in passing, on the underside of the leaves, one on a leaf, of low plants. 

 They are not related closely to any other group of Papiliones either of North 

 America, or any part of the Old World ; their nearest alliance is through the 

 South Brazilian P. Dardaims, with the Jigavtis group, which is found nowhere 

 but in the south of Brazil, and, although of vei-y different facies, shows in its 

 colouration and in the ample abdominal fold of the males a proximate relation to 

 the present. The group is essentially American ; showing, like the Platyrrhine 

 Monkeys, the arboreal Edentata, the Toucans, the CracidiF, &c. in the mammals 

 and birds, the features of South American organization, its distinctiveness and its 

 adaptation to a forest counti-y of enduring continuance and vast extent. The 

 sexes differ very much in colours, and the females are generally more subject to 

 vary than the males; in consequence, mistakes have been made by almost all the 

 authors who have writien upon them, and the nomenclature is in a very confused 

 condition. The colour of the fringe in the sinuses of the wing-margins is an im- 

 portant character and very useful in the elucidation of the species; 1 shall class 

 the species according to it. 



Section 1. Fringe ofthe wings white or yellowish. 



P. Sesostris S , Cram. 211 F. G. and authors. 



$ , lb. 277 C. D. (as P. TuUits). 

 ? , Gray, Cat. B. M. p. 58, pi. 5, f. 2 (as 

 P. Culora ? ). 



The male of this beautiful species does not vary in the slightest throughout the 

 country which I explored, through 22 degrees of longitude, from Para toTabatinga; 

 being always conformable to the Surinam type as figured by Cramer; but 6 de- 

 grees further west, on the Napo, near the loot of the Andes, it begins to vary ; 

 specimens from there showing the commencement of an elongate crimson spot, 

 near the abdominal edge ofthe hind wing. These are found in conjunction with 



