206 NORTH AMERICAN INSECTS. 



The Genus Papilio. 



This genus, called by Linnaeus Knights 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 Koyal 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. Linnasus 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 admirer 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 



