January lo, 1895] 



NA TURE 



255 



well as with the cones themselves. The fore wings are long and 

 narrow, measuring about five or six inches from tip to tip, and 

 the hind margin is very oblique. The hind wings are rounded 

 and dentated, but form almo-t a right angle at the anal angle of 

 the hind wings. Behind the head, we often find a red collar in 

 one or both sexes. We have not thought it necessary to figure a 

 species of this group, representatives of which may be seen in 

 almost every collection of butterflies from India and the adjacent 

 islands ; but we have given figures of the larva and pupa of 

 O. pomptus (Fig-:. I, 2) The transformations of all the species 

 of Ornithoftera are very similar, as far as they are at present 

 known ; the larvae are rather short and thick, with rows of long 

 fle-hy spines, and with the retractile scent-producing and defen- 

 sive bifid horn on the head, common to all the true Papilionida. 

 In the yellow group, these larvae are generally brown, with a 

 bro.id pale oblique band about the middle. 



The amount of yellow on the hind wings of the butterflies of 

 the Pompeus group differs very much. Sometimes we find 

 only a narrow black border, sometimes a very broad one, and 

 sometimes the base is also black, the yellow colouring being re- 

 stricted to a broad band, or even to a large spot in the centre. 

 Two or three yellow species, found in Malacca, Borneo, &c., of 



V^7 '-' . 



'm H '& '^"- '^'^ 



Flc. I. — Larva of Oi-ytithoptera PomJ>ctts, Craw. 



Fig. 2. — ^Mf^oi Oi'nithapUra Pompeus, Craw. 



-which 0. Amphrysus, Cramer, is the commonest, are distin- 

 guished fiom the others by having radiating yellow instead of 

 grey lines on the fore wings of the males. Occasionally speci- 

 mens of the yellow group are met with, wiih the yellow replaced 

 by deep golden red; but it is not certainly known whether this 

 peculiarity is accidental or specific. 



The grandest of all the yellow species, however, is 0. Ma- 

 gellamts, Felder, a native of the Philippine Islands. If the 

 butterfly is held towards the light, there is nothing to dis- 

 tinguish it from any other yellow OrntthopUra ; but if you turn 

 your back to the light, and hold the drawer on a level with 

 your eye, you will see a marvellous iridescence of the most deli- 

 cate pale silvery blue and green glancing over the whole of the 

 hind wings of the insect. There is nothing to compare with it 

 in any other butterfly, not even in Morpho Sulkoivskyi : the 

 nearest approach to it is in the iridescence over the ted spots in 

 some South American Papilios (which, though much smaller, 

 are considered to be closely related to Ornilhoptera), and in the 

 iridescence over the yellow on the wini;s of some Smth Ameri- 

 can butterflies belonging to the genus Eiistlasia, Hu'mer. But 

 these latter belong to a different family (Lemoniidtc), and are 

 small butterflies, not exceeding an inch and a half in expanse, 

 -whereas 0. Magellaniis is a grand black and golden-yellow 



butterfly, measuring six inches across the fore wings. It is 

 closely allied to several common Indian species, though none 

 of these show more than the very faintest traces of iridescence. 

 But in order lo obtain the full effect, it is necessary that O. 

 Alagellanus should be se\ Jlal. If the wings are set sloping, 

 according to the old English method, now bem.j rapidly super- 

 seded by the flat setting which has always been in use on the 

 continent, the effect of the iridescence is almost entirely lost. 

 0. Magellanus is still a scarce insect in c dlections. 



Amcjng the more abnormally coloured species of this group 

 we may mention O. Plaleni, Staudinger, from the Island of 

 Palawan, in which the male has t .vo broad golden-yellow blotches 

 on the centre of the hind wings, separated by the upper branch 

 of the subcostal nervure ; on the underside, and in the female, 

 this colour fills up a large part of the centre of the hind wings. 

 A still more remarkable species was lately discovered by Mr. 

 Doherty in the Island of Salibobo, or Lirung, one of the 

 Talautse Inlands, and was described and figured by Mr. Rippon 

 under the name of O Dihcrtyi. The male is of an intense 

 silky black above, with a slight greenish glow in certain lights ; 

 on the underside is a yellow ban I, parallel to the hind margin, 

 and cea>ing before the inner margin. The female has brown 

 fore wings, with the usual grey markings inclining to reddish ; 

 the hind wings are darker, with a small irregular buff patch in 

 the centre, divided by the nervures ; on the underside this 

 paich is larger, and the ends of the nervures are bordered with 

 the same colour. These butterflies measure about six inches 

 across the wings. 



Next to the golden yellow group of Ornithoplera, we may 

 place the splendid O. Hippolylus, Cramer, the female of which 

 sometimes measures nearly eight inches across the wings. 



It is not very closely allied to any other species. The fore 

 wings resemble those of the last group, but the hind wings in 

 the male are dark smoky brown, with a row of large yellow 

 spots extending all round the wings, except on the side next 

 the body ; these are bordered, both outside and inside, by a row 

 of neatly connected large black spits. In the female the yellow 

 markings are more extended, and the base of the wings is 

 black ; the lower part is bluish-grey ; and over the yellow and 

 grey part of the wing runs a marginal row of large white spots. 

 The fold on the hintl wings is filled with long flaffy white hair. 

 This insect is met with in .\ nboina, and Piepers, the Dutch 

 entomologist, records his having seen a specimen mobbed and 

 driven away by small butterflies, just as small birds will mob 

 and drive away a hawk in Europe. 



Mr. Kippon has proposed the name Pompeoplera for the 

 foregoing series of species ; but the types of Ornithoplera are 

 Papilio Priamiis and Helena of Linne, and as the former is 

 fixed as the type of Irohies, HUbner, by Iliibner's inclusion of 

 it in the second volume of his "Sammlung exotischer 

 Schnietteilinge," Helena remains as the true type of the genus 

 OrniV/w/Zfra, as coriectly given by Mr. Moore in bis " Lepi- 

 doptera of Ceylon," though Dr. Scudder, having overl.joked 

 both this point and the impropriety of regarding Helena as the 

 type of Trollies, specifies Priamiis as the type of Ornilhoptcru, 

 and Helena as the type of Troides. 



Next to the golden-yellow species of Ornithoplera, we come 

 to the green, blue, and orange section, to which the name of 

 Trollies should, as « e have just seen, be applied, and of which 

 Papilic Priamiis, Linne, from Amboina and Ceram, is the 

 type. To 0. Priamus and its allies Mr. Rippon restricts the 

 name of Ornithoplera. 



The species of TroiJes are all very similar except in size 

 and colour, and we have copied Mr. Rippon's figures of 

 the smallest species, T. Riihmondia, from Australia (Figs. 3, 

 4, i \ '■ 'R- S- * '■ This insect varies in size from 4.5 to 

 nearly 6 inches in expanse, the female being always the largest : 

 but in most of the other species in the group, the wings expand 

 6. 7, or even 8 inches in seme of the females. The males of 

 this section have velvety black fore wings, with a wide 

 green bar parallel to the costa, and another, more or less ex- 

 tended, at the hinder angle of the wing, running along the 

 inner margin towards the base, and curving upwaids along the 

 hind margin. The hind wings are green, with a row of black 

 spots (sometimes reduced to one or two) along the hind margin. 

 There is a long brown patch of raised scales towards the hind 

 margin of the fore wings in the male, which is quite absent in 

 the yellow group (Ornithoplera, true). The females are brown 

 butterflies, with two irregular rows of while spots on the fote 

 wings, the innermost very large (though obsolete in some 



NO. 



VOL. 



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