BIRD-WINGED BUTTERFLIES. 
By Caprain H. CayLEy WEBSTER, F.zZ.s. With a Photograph by the Author. 
ss Ornithoptera, or Bird-winged Butterflies, are some of the largest, and certainly the 
most beautiful, of all the Kastern Lepidoptera. They are found in New Guinea and 
the surrounding islands. ‘There are several species of the genus, the most notable being 
Ormithoptera paradisea, O. pegasus, O. victoria, O. priamus, and O. durvilliana. This 
latter species emerges from the chrysalis clothed with bright green colourimg, and only 
assumes that brilliant blue for which it is famous an hour or two after birth. 
Ormithoptera paradisea was one of my earliest captures. Only one specimen 
had reached Hurope before then, and I felt at the time that it was worth the whole 
of my journey to New Guinea to see this truly superb insect lying glistenimg in 
my hand. 
Of Ornithoptera pegasus (a species closely allied to O. priamus, with such an 
expanse of wing exhibiting a profusion of green and gold and so eagerly sought 
after by collectors) I captured and bred as many as one hundred and fifty specimens. 
The habits of these insects are interesting. The egg is deposited on the underside of 
the young leaf of a certain vine only to be found in the depths of the primeval forests 
abounding in the countries where it occurs. 
After the space of a few days the young caterpillar is hatched, and at once 
feeds voraciously on the tender shoots, growing rapidly until in a few weeks it 
attains a length of about three inches. ‘Then, when the time draws nigh for it to 
pass into the transitory stage of the chrysalis, it becomes exceedingly restless, and 
for some days roams about hither and thither ever hunting for some suitable place 
where the necessary change may take place, and eating little or nothing. At length, 
having found a likely branch or sturdy twig, it commences to bind its stern firmly 
to it with a very fine mucous thread. 
Having accomplished this self-confinement, it proceeds to wind a noose of the 
same substance round its own neck and attaches it to the branch to which its other 
end is made fast some few inches higher up. When sufficient threads have been 
spun to carry the weight of the body it suddenly lets go, and thus hangs itself, as 
the stern end is only fastened to prevent the wind from blowing it away. In this 
self-gibbeted state it remains for about six or eight weeks, when suddenly the part 
which had once been the strangled head opens like the lid to a box, and from the 
interior crawls the new insect, which has now assumed the form of the butterfly 
with all its delicate velvety wings wrapped close, to be opened out an hour afterwards, 
producing the glorious creature as it is seen in the cabinets of fortunate collectors, 
complete in all its magnificence. 
On one of my excursions far into the virgin forest at Htna Bay, Dutch New 
Guinea, where now lie the bones of three of my best men, killed and eaten before 
my eyes by the ferocious and bloodthirsty cannibals who so savagely attacked 
my little party, I captured a female Ornithoptera which I at once thought to be a 
new species. I extracted an egg from its body, and after the lapse of a week the 
young caterpillar was born. Then it was that, had I had any doubt before, it was 
dispersed and I saw that it was a “Spec. nov.” The white stripe common to all 
previously-known Ornithoptera caterpillars was missing, the red spikes were not there, 
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