5^ NATURAL HISTORY. 



best known species (Parnassius apollo) is abundant in the Alps. It is white, thinly scaled 

 towards the extremities of the wings, and the fore wings are marked with several black spots. 

 On the hind wings are two large round red spots, whitish in the middle, and enclosed in black 



rings. Most of the other species of Parnassius 

 closely resemble this ; but P. mnemosyne, also an 

 Alpine species, has no red spots, but only two black 

 spots on the fore wings, and even these disappear 

 in the Siberian P. stubbendorfii. The few known 

 caterpillars of this genus are black, with rows of red 

 spots on the sides, and feed on different species of 

 saxifrage. 



The genus Teinopalpus is distinguished fr-om 

 any other of the sub-family by the unusual length off 

 its palpi. T. imperialis is one of the rarest and most 



PARNASSIUS APOLLO. beautiful of Himalayan Butterflies, and measures 



about five inches across the wings, which are black,. 



dusted all over with velvety green, and banded with purple. The hind wings are very strongly 

 dentated, with one long tail in the male, and three in the female. 



The great genus Prpilio, which includes the well-known Swallow-tail Butterflies, may be known 

 from the other genera of the family by its longer antennae and very short palpi. There are about 500 

 species known at present, but only four are European, and the genus attains its maximum of 

 size, beauty, and variety in Africa and the Eastern Archipelago. It is in the latter region that 

 the splendid Bird-winged Butterflies, belonging to the sub-genus Omithoptera, may be found. AIL 

 the species included in it are very large insects, with long fore wings, measuring from five to. 

 eight or nine inches across, and short, more or less dentated hind wings, which, however-, are 

 not tailed. The first groiip have velvety-black wings, with a broad green stripe running parallel 

 to the costa, and a narrower bar running near the inner margin and curving up along the hind 

 margin. The hind wings are green, with a row of round black spots, and the abdomen is 

 golden-yellow. Such are the males. The females are large black Butterflies, with two rows of 

 white spots on the fore wings, and a row of very large oval ones, marked with round black 

 spots, near the border of the hind wings. In one species (Omithoptera urvilliana), which has been 

 brought from Duke of York Island, the ordinary green of the male is replaced by the richest blue ; 

 in another (P. craesus) it has been changed for the most brilliant golden-orange. The latter- 

 species is conflned to the two small islands of Batchian and Gilolo, in the Northern Moluccas, 

 where it was discover-ed not many years ago by the enterprising traveller and naturalist, Mr. 

 A. R, Wallace. After having only caught an occasional glimpse of this magnificent species, 

 flying far out of reach, he succeeded in finding a beautiful shrub with yellow flowers which was. 

 frequented by the insect; and subsequently his native collector met with it flying along the bed 

 of a large rocky stream, and settling occasionally on stones and rocks in the water. Mr. Wallace 

 thus describes his first capture of the insect : " None but a naturalist can understand the 

 intense excitement I experienced when I at length captured it. On taking it out of my net, 

 and opening the glorious wings, my heart began to beat violently, the blood rushed to my head> 

 and I felt much more like fainting than I have done when in apprehension of immediate death. I 

 had a headache the rest of the day, so great was the excitement produced by what will appear to most 

 people a very inadequate cause."* 



The second group of Ornitlioptera is not confined to the islands, but extends to India and South 

 China. The fore wings are narrower than in the preceding group, and are black, while the hind 

 wings are yellow or golden-yellow in the centre, with black borders, or conical marginal spots, and 

 often a row of round black spots within them. 



The third group contains but one species another grand discovery of Mr. Wallace's Omithoptera 

 brookeana, from Borneo and Sumatra. It is black, with a row of large green spots on the outer 

 portion of the fore wings. They are of a long triangular form, the apices extending to the margins. 



* "Malay Archipelago," ch. xxiv. 



