L E I L U S Occidentalis, 



West India Emerald- Butterfly . 



Specific Character. 



Posterior wings with a flame-coloured, irregularly indented., 

 marginal band ; tails black, with emerald green spot*. 

 Papilio Sloaneus. Cramer, pi. 85. e. f. vol. 1. p. 134. 

 Papilio Leilus. var. Fab. Ent. Sijst. 3. 1. 22. 



Specimens of this rare and splendid species, sent to our 

 museum from the island of Jamaica, enable us to complete 

 the illustration of the only three American species of this 

 type hitherto discovered. It is in all probability the same as 

 that figured by Cramer; particularly as his specimens 

 came from the same locality. Even a superficial com- 

 parison of this figure with those on our two last plates, will 

 shew the error of Fabricius and others, in classing- them all 

 under the same name. We have represented the species 

 in that attitudewhich is assumed by L. Braziliensis, when at 

 rest ; the wings of which species are sometimes less but never 

 more expanded : the fruit, upon which the insect is reposing, 

 is the common West India Banana, shewing- its natural size, 

 In drawing the attention of Entomologists to the anato- 

 mical details of this typical example of the genus Leilas, 

 it will be readily perceived that the obscurity Avhich has 

 involved its natural affinities, has entirely arisen from 

 ignorance of its structure. At a time when minute and 

 obscure Coleoptera are submitted to the most delicate 

 dissection, under powerful magnifiers, the Lepidopte:; \, 

 not only the most striking and splendid of all insects, but 

 the pre-eminent type of the Annulosa, have been compara- 

 tively neglected. We cannot otherwise account for this, 

 but by remembering that the influence of fashion is 

 universal, and that she is always followed by the majority. 

 This exclusive devotion however, to one order, is highly 

 detrimental to the study of the natural system ; or with so 

 many profound Entomologists who have gone before us, it 

 would not have been left for us to make known the fact, tlmt 

 the sub-family Papilion.de, represents the sub-family Harpa- 

 linse, (Harpalidae, Auct.) And that this analogy is not 

 oidy demonstrable by the peculiar construction of their 

 libive, but by the parallel relations and by tin- circular 

 affinities of the Coleoptera and the IjEPIDOPTERa. 



129. 



