THE FALL WEB-WORM AND THE SWALLOWTAILS 



369 



with respect to how, when, and where to collect the 

 larvae of our moths and butterflies, their pupae, or the 

 insects themselves. Such work demands a sufficient 

 knowledge of entomological literature to enable the 

 student to identify species and subspecies when they 

 come to hand; their various methods of breeding them 

 successfully in captivity, and their collecting in nature 

 and subsequent preservation. 



When properly preserved in modern cabinets, moths 

 and butterflies form one of the most beautiful and in- 

 structive series of objects that can be imagined; while 

 the collecting of such material in their various haunts has 

 so much to be heartily recommended in it, that not a 

 few books have been wholly devoted to it by students 

 of every civilized nation in the world. Even some of 

 our commonest butterflies, such as are here shown in 

 Figure 5 were it possible to present them in their 

 natural colors are, when perfect, of surpassing beauty. 



Aside from the moth and butterfly collecting as a 

 lucrative enterprise, in various parts of the world, it 

 possesses the advantage to the individual of open air ex- 

 ercise ; the cultivation of the spirit of travel ; the develop- 

 ment of the power of correct observation; the training 

 of all the special senses ; the formation of the habit of 

 literary research and review of museum and private 

 collections; the making of agreeable and desirable ac- 

 quaintances and friends, with various other advantages 

 thrown in. 



Many years ago, the late Alfred Russel Wallace, the 

 co-investigator in the field of organic evolution with 

 Darwin, was a correspondent of the writer's after his 

 return from England from his famous sojourn of eight 

 years in the wilds of the islands of Malay Archipelago. 

 Subsequent to his return in 1862, Wallace published one 

 of the most interesting books of travel that ever came 

 off the presses. He was a most enthusiastic collector of 

 all sorts of living forms in the field, especially so with 

 respect to the gorgeous specimens of moths and butter- 

 flies that occurred in the fauna of those great islands 

 that he explored in the eastern seas. That book appeared 

 in 1869, since which time the writer has read it through 

 three times from cover to ccver. 



While in Sumatra, Wallace collected some remarkable 

 species of Papilio, of which he presents several figures 

 in his book. They have the same general form as the 

 butterflies of this genus considered in the present article, 

 while upon the other hand they show some very curious 

 differences. The observations were made at Lobo 

 Ramau, a central point at the east end of Sumatra. He 

 says that "during a month's collecting, I added only 

 three or four new species to my list of birds, although I 

 obtained very fine specimens of many which were rare 

 and interesting. In butterflies I was rather more suc- 

 cessful, obtaining several fine species quite new. to me, 

 and a considerable number of very rare and beautiful 

 insects. I will give here some account of two species 

 of butterflies, which, though very common in collections, 

 present us with peculiarities of the highest interest. 



"The first is the handsome Papilio memnon, a splendid 

 butterfly of a deep-black color, dotted over with lines 



and groups of scales of a clear ashy blue. Its wings are 

 five inches in expanse, and the hind wings are rounded, 

 with scalloped edges. This applies to the males ; but the 

 females are very different, and vary so much that they 

 were once supposed to form several distinct species. They 

 may be divided into two groups those which resemble 

 the male in shape, and those which differ entirely from 

 him in the outline of the wings. The first vary much in 

 color, being often nearly white, with dusky yellow and 

 red markings ; but such differences often occur in butter- 

 flies. The second group are much more extraordinary, 

 and would never be supposed to be the same insect, 

 since the hind wings are lengthened out into large 

 spoon-shaped tails, no rudiment of which is ever to 

 be perceived in the males or in the ordinary form of 

 females. 



"These tailed females are never of the dark and blue- 

 glossed tints which prevail in the male, and often occur 

 in the female of the same form, but are invariably orna- 

 mented with stripes and patches of white or buff, occu- 

 pying the larger part of the surface of the hind wings. 

 This peculiarity of coloring led me to discover that this 

 extraordinary female closely resembles (when flying) 

 another butterfly of the same genus, but of a different 

 group {Papilio coon); and that we have here a case of 

 mimicry similar to those so well illustrated and explained 

 by Mr. Bates. That the resemblance is not accidental 

 is sufficiently proved by the fact that in the north of 

 India, where Papilio coon is replaced by an allied form 

 {Papilio Doubledayi) having red spots in place of yellow, 

 a closely allied species or variety of Papilio memnon 

 {P. androgens), has the tailed female also red-spotted. 

 The use and reason of this resemblance appears to be 

 that the butterflies imitated belong to a section of the 

 genus Papilio which, from some other cause or other, 

 are not attacked by birds, and by so closely resembling 

 these in form and color the female of memnon and its 

 ally also escape persecution. Two other species of this 

 same section {Papilio antiflurs and Papilio polyphontes) 

 are so closely imitated by two female forms of Papilio 

 theseus (which come in the same section with memnon) 

 that they completely deceived the Dutch entomologist, 

 De Haan, and he accordingly classed them as the same 

 species. 



"But the most curious fact connected with these dis- 

 tinct forms is that they are both the offspring of either 

 form. A single brood of larvae were bred in Java by a 

 Dutch entomologist, and produced males as well as tail- 

 less females ; and there is every reason to believe that 

 this is always the case, and the forms intermediate in 

 characters never occur." 



This rather full quotation from Wallace sees its justi- 

 fication in the fact that it is so pregnant with useful 

 lessons in entomology in general and the study of moths 

 and butterflies in particular. Our own forms in these 

 groups have, to be sure, been extensively written up ; 

 but then, be it known, there still remains a whole lot in 

 the lives of many of them of which we have not, at this 

 writing, a single line of information. 



