CHAP. XXI.] 



INSECTS. 



479 



Family 15.— PAPILTONID.E. (13 Genera, 455 Species.) 



General Distribution. 



The Papilionidse, comprising many of the noblest and richest- 

 coloured butterflies, and long placed at the head of the group, 

 are almost as universally distributed as the Pieridse, but they do 

 not extend to so many remote islands nor so far into the Arctic 

 and Antarctic regions. Nine-tenths of the species belong to the 

 genus Papilio, and these are especially abundant in tropical 

 regions, although species occur in every region and every sub- 

 region. Well-marked sub-divisions of this large genus are 

 characteristic of each great region — as the "^neas" group in the 

 Neotropical, the "Paris" group in the Oriental, the "^geus" group 

 in the Australian, the " Zenobius " group in the Ethiopian, and 

 many others. The few species of the Palaearctic region belong, 

 on the other hand, to a group of universal distribution, and the 

 Nearctic has a good number of species allied to Neotropical 

 forms. 



The other genera have mostly a very restricted range. Par- 

 nassius is an Alpine genus, confined to the Palsearctic and 

 Nearctic regions. The Palaearctic region further possesses 5 

 peculiar genera — Mesapia, Hypermnestra, Doritis, Sericinus, and 

 Thais; the Oriental has 4, Calinaga, Tdnopalpus, Bhutanitis, 

 and Leptocirms, the latter going as far as Celebes; the Aus- 

 tralian has 1, Eurycus'; and the Neotropical 1, Euryades, con- 

 fined to the Chilian sub-region. The Ethiopian and the Nearctic 

 regions have no peculiar genera. 



