OBSERVATIONS ON SOME OF THE FOREGOING FIGURES. 



Fig. i.— On comparison a considerable difference ob- 

 tains in the outlines and character of the neuration of the 

 different genera of the great family of Papilionidse. 

 In our Fig. of Ornithoptera, drawn from the ? as being 

 the most useful for the purpose, attention may be 

 called to the 3 accepted branches of the median 

 vein on the anterior wing, — their direction being normal 

 in the ? , while in the $ , as shown in another place, they 

 are considerably distorted or diverted in their course by 

 passing through the disturbing medium of the stigma or 

 sexual brand. This effect is necessarily produced on 

 both surfaces, because the brand is impressed on the two 

 membranes of the wing : and throughout the whole of the 

 species or forms of the true genus Ornithoptera among the 

 $ S there is no exception to this rule. It will also be ob- 

 served that the wing outlines of the female Ornithoptera 

 differ from those of the males so considerably in every 

 species that if we were only just made acquainted 

 with them, and each sex had been taken in a different 

 district or island, we might have been disposed prima facice 

 to regard them as members of two distinct genera. It 

 may be observed that the males are always closely related 

 in appearance and splendour, as if they were only local 

 forms of one species, with the single exception of the 

 Australian Richmondia, from the Richmond River : [even 

 this species is as splendid as any of the others, but it is 

 much smaller— appearing more like a dwarfed form of 

 O. Cassandra ;] and that the females also are 

 generally much alike in dull colouring and mark- 

 ing, as well as size and outline, with one exception (that 

 of Lydins) though varying so infinitely in minute details, 

 that they also might well be regarded as local variations 

 of a single form. The two sexes of the Pompeoptera, on 

 the other hand, generally bear a close resemblance to each 

 other both in outline and colouring, and even, with a few 

 exceptions, in size,— the most notable being P. Dohertyi ; 

 there is no disturbance of the veinlets of the <? anterior 

 wings, because the stigma is absent, and an abdominal 

 marginal pouch, filled with Androconia, takes its place. 

 By a natural gradation the South aud Central American 

 red and black, and green and black Papilios (or as I pre- 

 fer to consider them, Ornithopterina, follow with_ a 

 similar outline of upper, and sometimes a tailed posterior 

 wing ; but in no known case is the hind wing of Orni- 

 thoptera, Trogonoptera, or Pompeoptera, thus pro- 

 longed. In Trogonoptera, like Pompeoptera, the form 

 and appearance of the sexes are very similar, and the $ 

 proves its close relationship to Pompeoptera by the 

 abdominal fold or pouch, with its contents. The outline 

 of the genus is not unlike that of Druryia, which we 

 consider as the head of the group of the Ornithoptera, 

 though the anterior wings oiD.antimachus are more concave, 

 we might say, almost falcate. Druryia (including the 

 West African 0. Zalmoxis), appears to differ but little in 

 the wing outline of the sexes, except in size ; and being 

 Acraeoid in superficial appearance, recalls to our attention 



the Asiatic Papilios of the Dissimilis group. But the 

 most remarkable of all Ornithoptera, not excepting even 

 the ^Etheoptera, is the genus Schoenbergia. Here 

 we have a tailed hind wing, almost suggestive of that of 

 the genus Leptocircus (of Swainson), with a curious 

 arrangement of the neuration to strengthen the modified 

 parts, and a disproportion between the size and form of 

 the anterior and posterior wings, — the body also being 

 modelled on a modified plan. In an examination of the 

 true Papilionidae we meet with several interesting resem- 

 blances to the neuration of the $ Schoenbergia. The 

 females of the latter genus are outlined like those of 

 Ornithoptera, and the neuration is closely like that of 

 the ? ^Etheoptera ; the general appearance is something 

 like that of Ornithoptera, though darker and in an inde- 

 finable way considerably distinct ; but it is very closely like 

 the alleged 2 of Sch, Tithonus, — while the general appear- 

 ance of each, is unlike that of the species of iEtheoptera. 

 Lastly the males of yETHEOPTERApossess a stigma or sexual 

 brand, the 3 median veinlets are very close together and 

 low down on the wing — are modified in direction by pass- 

 ing through the stigmatic surfaces — and the excised 

 outline of the posterior wing is absolutely abnormal and 

 curious ; added to this the splendour of the insect is 

 greater than that of any other known species or genus of 

 Lepidoptera, not excepting even those of Morpho^ Callithea, 

 Agrias, or Urania. A review of other sections of the 

 Papilionin^e, with respect to their outlines and neuration, 

 including the genera Teinopalpus, Sericinus, Armandia, 

 Thais, Euryades, Eurycus and Luehdorfia would yield 

 much interesting and instructive material for comparison 

 with the Ornithoptera. In all these genera it may be 

 noticed that the precostal nervure is bifid, though the size 

 and shape differ much in each genus ; while in the genera 

 Doritis and Hypermnestra this is not the case — a fact 

 which seems to ally the latter to the sub-family Pierin^s, 

 though the median veins of the anterior wings are four- 

 branched as in Ornithoptera and Papilio. 



pig. 2 . — The Tegulae or Paraptera are affixed at the 

 base of the anterior wings on the upper side of the meso- 

 thorax, or second section of the thorax. In the Ornithop- 

 tera they are large and usually covered with black hairs ; 

 but in some Lepidoptera they are often of different colours 

 from the rest of the Mesonotum, or with spots of two 

 different colours as the case may be, as in the Heliconia, 

 Danainae, some of the Papilionina;, and the Arctiidae 

 among the moths,— the American arctiidae for example. 

 In some genera they are obscure in outline, as in Par- 

 nassius, some of the Geometridae, and in other families ; 

 while they are very prominent and recognisable in the 

 Arctiidae, the big Bombyces, some of the Geometridas, 

 and many butterflies ; but their most obtrusive develop- 

 ment is met with among the Noctuidae, notably in the 

 genus Plusia, where they raise the thorax into an absolute 

 ridge near the head ; and, as Westwood points out, in the 



