TROIDES. 251 



GENUS TROIDES. 



Troides, Hiibner, Verz. bek. Schmett. p. 88 (1816). 

 Ornithoptera, Rippon, Icones Ornithopterorum, p. i (1891). 



With this genus we commence the series of Butterflies usually 

 included in Boisduval's genus Ornithoptera^ or Bird-winged But- 

 terflies, which Mr. Rippon is now engaged in illustrating in his 

 " Icones Ornithopterorum." They include many of the largest 

 and most beautiful Butterflies in the world, and their range ex- 

 tends from China and India to North Australia. But only the 

 genera Ornithoptera, Boisduval, and Trogonoptera^ Rippon, are 

 found in the Indo-Malayan Region ; the others belong exclu- 

 sively to the Austro-Malayan Region. I have published a paper 

 on this group in Nature for January 10, 1894, from which 

 the accompanying figures have been taken, with the kind per- 

 mission of the editor. I have not attempted here to reproduce 

 all the information contained in that paper, though I have added 

 some new matter which did not appear in it. 



Here I may emphasise the fact that in dividing the Linnean 

 Equites into genera, Hiibner usually employed classical patro- 

 nymics. In my determination of the types of these genera I 

 have taken into consideration two points to which previous 

 authors seem to have paid but little attention. Firstly, the 

 applicability (if any) of the name itself, which cannot be ignored 

 in cases where there is a direct connection between the names 

 of genera and species j and secondly (though this is of much 

 less consequence), the species figured under these names 

 by Hiibner himself. If, therefore, I ignore the types which 

 some previous authors have affixed to Hiibner's genera, it is 

 usually on these grounds. 



So far as is known, most of the species of this group agree 

 in the large anal claspcrs of the males, the large collar, the 

 long and rather pointed fore-wings, and the generally rounded 

 and scalloped hind-wings, the tuberculate larvae, &c. 



