L E 1 L (J S Orientalis. 

 Oriental Emerald Butterfly. 



Specific Character. 

 Posterior wings six tailed ,- anal angle with a large flame- 

 coloured space, varied with black spots; tails unequal* 

 whiteish. 



Papilio Rhipheus. Cramer, Vol. 2, page 193, pi. 3S5,fig. A. D. 



That the natural affinities of this superb and highly 

 interesting- group of insects should be no longer a matter 

 of doubt, we are induced to deviate, for the first time, from 

 bur usual practice. On this and the next plate we have 

 copied two figures of insects which we have never seen, for 

 the purpose of bringing- them immediately before the eye of 

 the entomologist, and of clearing up some remarkable facts 

 concerning- them. 



The first of these is taken from Cramer ■, who calls it 

 Pap. Rhipheus, from an unaccountable idea that it was 

 the same species as one figured by Drury, under that name. 

 lie imagines that this latter figure was made from a 

 mutilated specimen, in which the tails had been broken oh% 

 and that his, consequently-, represented the insect in its 

 perfect state. Every succeeding writer, so far as we can 

 discover, has taken up this idea, without the precaution 

 of investigating its correctness. Now it follows that if the 

 two species were the same, the posterior wings of Cramer's^ 

 Would be spotted like those of Drury 1 8^ yet they are 

 essentially different: a piece of paper, put over to hide the 

 tails in our present figure, which may then be compared 

 with the next, will at once explain our meaning : but 

 setting" tiiis aside, Cramer expressly asserts that his insect 

 lias the Antenna? "suns boatoas, and com me Jili formes, and 

 very justly compares it with our Leilas Surinamensis, "mas 

 plas encore" with Pap. Orontes, L (() routes Novtu'ides, 

 fSw.) the immediate type to which it leads. 



How totally inapplicable this account is to Drury's insectj 

 Vvill be presently shewn. Cramer has most correctly given 

 the immediate affinities of this insect. We have no space to 

 State Our reasons for considering it, at present, as a true 

 Leilas; although with six tails, instead of two. It may 

 possibly, however, be the fifth, or natatorial type, which 

 in our synopsis of the genus at PI. 125, we have not ventured 

 to indicate. We have never seen, or even heard of a spe- 

 cimen in modern cabinets ; that figured by Cramer, was 

 found at Chandcrnagor, in Bengal, and was in the rich 

 collection of M. Gigot d'Orcy. 



loO. 



