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they wing their way among the other glories of forest, mountain, plain and garden ! They are some of the humblest of 

 living creatures, they live their little span of life, and then pass away." " Yet I say unto you that Solomon in all his 

 glory was not arrayed like one of theses And the same may be said of many creatures even lower in the scale of life 

 than these, to say nothing of the inhabitants of the vegetable kingdom. But we may rejoice still more for ourselves 

 than for them, for we also came forth from the same creative hand for infinitely higher rank and beauty than they, to 

 be the High Priests of Nature, to praise Him for them and for ourselves. We, in a limited degree can create beautiful 

 and wonderful things, as our arts and sciences prove. Our pictures, our music and poetry ; our machinery, bridges, 

 cathedrals, and public buildings ; our knowledge and control of the mysterious forces of Nature from radium to elec- 

 tricity ; our mysterious lordship over the lower kingdoms of life, and our love for them and our fellow creatures, all 

 prove that through a Herschel, a Lord Kelvin, a Lord Lister, a Darwin, a Farraday, a Virchow or a Pasteur, a Haydn 

 or a Mendelssohn, a Titian, Corregio, or a Tadema ; a Christopher Wren or Inigo Jones ; a Prescott or a Macaulay ; a 

 Goethe, Shakespeare, Moliere, Browning, or a Tennyson ; or even through the most unworthy of us God is ever 

 striving to express Himself, even as He does through our greater and humbler preachers, and the lowliest of good men 

 and women, whatever their creed : for in every work of man, save in its imperfections, I am assured we may see God's 

 thoughts and creative powers revealed. Great indeed is the honour ! But even then "it doth not yet appear what we 

 shall be ; but when He shall appear we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is." 



To some of our Biologists and Evolutionists the foregoing remarks may seem unscientific and out of place in a 

 matter of fact monograph of a tribe of butterflies. I am unable to share in that opinion. I am as fully convinced an 

 evolutionist as anyone ; for I know it means a sublime attempt at a partial explanation of the universe. It is also to 

 me an affirmation of God's ruling mind in the history of infinity ; and so I think that even a Haekel, though he may 

 not believe it, is unconsciously doing his part towards glorifying his Creator and establishing the fact of God's imman- 

 ence in the affairs of the universe, just as the preachers and intellectual giants of every age and nationality have done, 

 and are ever doing. 



It is a pleasurable thought that we have our Creator's gracious invitation to study His works and ways in 

 these words : " Ask Me of the things to come ; concerning My sons, and concerning the work of My hands, 

 command ye Me." — Isaiah xlv,, 11. 



But now it remains for me to give a few words of explanation regarding an omission in this work of a feature 

 which I had from the first promised it should include. I refer to that group of American Papilios, following imme- 

 diately after the Genus Pompeoptera, and which I propose to establish as a third group of Troides, to be called 

 Ornithopterina. The first of these is Papilio Chabrias of Hewitson, from Equador and Upper Amazon, of which 

 there are two forms, probably of the same species, namely P. Triopus and P. Chabrias : these may be united as one 

 species, to be called Triopus Chabrias, and should immediately follow Pompeoptera or Andromache. 



Papilio /Eneides of Esper would be the type of the 2nd genus ; P. Belus of the 3rd ; P. Children^ of the 4th, and 

 P. Dardanus of the 5th genus. Of course this is only a rough and provisional arrangement, to be more fully revised 

 when the subject is entered upon. I found, on mature consideration, that as this volume has exceeded my estimated 

 limits, and as I could not do justice to the plan sketched out above in the small space I should have at my disposal, 

 that it would be better to leave it for the present ; and for a second reason also, that I wished for the sake of my sub- 

 scribers and for my own sake, to get the present work complete. So I propose to publish, at some early time hence, if 

 I am spared life and sufficient health, a supplementary volume, to contain any new Troides that may be discovered, 

 and the females of such as Pompeoptera Neomiranda, &c. (which came to hand too late for insertion in this volume). 

 The rest of this supplement would be devoted to the consideration of the Ornithopterina. 



