THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



Vol. XXIV.] MAY, 1891. [No. 836. 



THE SIGNIFICANCE OF OCCASIONAL, AND APPARENTLY 

 UNIMPORTANT, MARKINGS IN LEPIDOPTERA. 



By J. Jenner Weir, F.L.S., &c. 



It has, no doubt, not escaped the notice of British entomo- 

 logists that in Papilio machaon the first submarginal lunule, on 

 the upper side of the lower wings, is often not purely yellow, but 

 more or less suffused with red. 



In English specimens of the insect I find this marking 

 existing in females very commonly ; in a female from Hyeres it 

 is faintly visible ; in one out of four, from Japan, it can be seen ; 

 and is very well shown in a large female I have from Loo Choo 

 Islands. I do not find this red mark in specimens taken by 

 myself in Saxony, and in the Alhambra, at Granada, in Spain. 

 Judging from those in my own cabinet it does not exist in the 

 European Papilio alexanor, the Japanese P. xuthus, the American 

 P. zolicaon and P. americus : in Mr. Edwards' work on the ' Butter- 

 flies of North America ' the marking is not shown in the plates 

 of P. indra and P. hairdii ; it reappears very faintly in the 

 female of P. polyxenes, and very prominently in the female of P. 

 hrevicauda ; this latter has, however, the yellow markings much 

 suffused with red. 



In the allied genera of Papilioninse I do not find the marking 

 in Iphiclides podalirius, nor in the American I. ajax and its 

 horeomorphic varieties. 



In the genus Jasoniades, another allied division of that aptly- 

 termed " magazine genus" Papilio, it exists very strongly marked 

 in J. glaucus, the black dimorphic female of J. turnus, and 

 in the latter yellow form in both sexes ; but in this species it is 

 often very indistinct, and I have a male specimen from Moose 

 Factory, St. James' Bay, in which no trace of it can be seen. 

 In Jasoniades rutilus there is sometimes a faint trace of red 

 in the lunule, but not in J. earymedon ; and in J. daunus there is 



ENTOM. — MAY, 1891. K 



