LEPIDOPTERA. 



THE SWALLOW-TAILED GROUP, Family PAPILIONID^E, 



This immense family includes the giant Ornithoptera, or bird-winged butter- 

 flies of the tropics, the swallow-tails, Apollo butterflies, whites, brimstones, and 

 many others. As mentioned above, this family and the next are characterised by 

 the possession of six perfect legs in both sexes. The chrysalids of the present 

 family are suspended by the tail and girdled with a thread of silk. The largest of 

 the butterflies (Ornithoptera) belonging to this family measure nearly a foot across 

 the expanded wings. The typical members of the family are the swallow-tails 

 (Papilionince), which are large butterflies characterised generally by the presence of 

 a long tail-like process to the hind- 

 wings. Occasionally, however, as 

 in the female of Papiliomerope, 

 these appendages are wanting. 

 The two uppermost figures of the 

 illustration on p. 90 exhibit the 

 scarce swallow-tail (P. podalirius), 

 which is a large, strong insect with 

 triangular front wings, and a long 

 tail at the lower angle of the 

 hinder pair. In colour the wings 

 are pale yellow, with oblique trans- 

 verse black bars. This splendid 

 butterfly, although common in 

 Southern Europe, North Africa, 

 West Asia, and Persia, is only very 

 rarely taken in England. The larvae 

 feed on leaves of the sloe, apple, 

 plum, and other orchard trees. The 

 common swallow-tail (P. machaon) 

 was formerly very abundant in the 

 fen districts of England, but since 

 these have been drained it has 

 become scarcer. The four wings 

 are sulphur -yellow, black at their 

 base, with black veins, and hinder 

 pair of the same colour, with a band 

 of blue towards the margin, and a 



red spot on the inner angle, close to where the tail springs. The larva feeds on the 

 common carrot. This species has a very wide range, occurring in the Kashmir 

 Himalaya. Of the royal swallow-tail (Tinopalpus imperialis), from Sikhim, a 

 figure is given in No. 2 from the top left-hand corner of the coloured Plate. The 

 females are less brilliantly coloured than the males, and have a pair of tails to each 

 hind-wing 1 . 



o . 



The whites, clouded yellows, orange-tips, brimstones, etc., represent the second 

 subfamily (Pierince) of this assemblage, in which there are no tails to the hind- 



BLACK-VEILED WHITE, WITH LARVA AND CHRYSALIS. 



