LEPIDOPTERA. 



the two superior ones. These latter, and even most frequently the former 

 are raised perpendicularly when the insect is at rest. The antennae are some- 

 times terminated by a globuliform inflation or little club, and are sometimes 

 almost of equal thickness throughout or even more slender, and form a hooked 

 point at the extremity. This family comprises the genus 



PAPILIO, LinneBus. 



The larvae always have sixteen feet. The chrysalides are almost always 

 naked, are attached by the tail, and most commonly angular. The perfect 

 insect, always provided with a proboscis or trunk, flies during the day only, 

 and the colours which ornament the under part of the wings do not yield in 

 beauty to those which decorate their superior surface. 



These insects are now divided into two sections. Those of the first have 

 but a single pair of spurs or spines to their tibiae, which are found on their 

 posterior extremity. Their four wings are raised perpendicularly when at 

 rest. Their antennae are sometimes inflated at the extremity, globuliform, or 

 in a little club, truncated and rounded at the summit, and sometimes almost 

 filiform. Those in which the inferior palpi are but slightly compressed, 

 distant throughout their length, or at least at their extremity, and abruptly 

 terminated by a slender and acicular joint ; where the under surface of the 

 wings frequently presents silvery or yellow spots on a fulvous ground ; and the 

 caterpillars of which are always covered with spines or fleshy and hairy 

 tubercles, compose the subgenera CETHOSIA, Fab., and ARGYNXIS, MELIT^EA, 

 Fab. In the first, several species of which have elevated and elongated wings, 

 the inferior palpi are distant throughout their whole length, the hooks of the 

 tarsi are simple, and the club of the antennae is oblong *. In the second it is 

 short and abrupt; the hooks of the tarsi are unidentated, and the inferior 

 palpi are only distant at their extremity. The inferior wings are frequently 

 round. 



Some Argynnis, Fab. have nacred spots on the under part of their wings. 



Their caterpillars are fur- 

 nished with spines, two on 

 the neck longer than the 

 rest. Those of the others 

 Mditaea, Fab. have little 

 hairy tubercles ; the wings 

 are spotted like a chess- 

 board, and the nacre is 

 replaced by yellow, a 

 circumstance which some- 

 times occurs in the pre- 

 ceding one. 



Those in which the inferior palpi are contiguous throughout their whole 

 length, terminated almost insensibly in a point, and strongly compressed, form 

 five other subgenera. 



* See the works already quoted. 



