7 6 



inhabiting a tract of territory from Mackay and the Pioneer River on the East Coast of Australia (about 2i° 15' S. lat., 

 and 149 15' E. longitude), to Cooktown, near the Norma River, (in about 15 20' S. lat., and 143 15' E. long.) or within 

 a line of coast at least of 380 miles from north to south. It has been taken plentifully at Cairns on the Russell River, 

 about 68 miles north of Cooktown ; at Port Denison 200 miles N.E. of Cairns ; on the Border River, 60 or 70 miles 

 inland in a westerly direction ; and on the Herbert River which empties itself into the sea at the head of Halifax Bay. 

 It has been received from parts of N. S. Wales as well as Queensland — and its northern limit is the Maroochy River. 

 But we may safely assume that its range would extend inland west to many degrees of longitude, probably through the 

 whole of Queensland. Specimens which come to us from such a large territory, of which the coast is the most thickly 

 populated, naturally will have been chiefly taken in tracts of land most accessible. 



The third species of Ornithoptera found in Australia is confined to the more extreme northern part of the 

 Continent, where the climate and vegetation become more tropical in character. This is 0, Poseidon, of which its var. 

 Pronomus is found at Cape York and Thursday Island, and the type form Poseidon on Darnley Island, between 

 N. Australia and New Guinea. On the Cape York Peninsula, under its name of Pronomus, it will probably range over 

 at least 4 degrees of latitude, but it has not been found on the opposite or west side of the Gulf of Carpentaria, or North 

 Australia, so far as I am aware. Euphorion or Cassandra has, however, on the authority of Gray, been brought from the 

 N.W. coast and N. of the Continent. Thursday Island is a small but important islet about 18 or 20 miles N. N.-West 

 of the most northern point of the Australian continent — Cape York. Prince of Wales Island, comes, with Horn islet 

 between Thursday Island and the mainland, and the sea beyond to New Guinea is fairly dotted with islets and specks 

 of land — many of which may be stages in the distribution of such a varying but strong species as Poseidon. When the 

 two masses of land were joined, as they must have been long before those land specks were formed, probably Poseidon was 

 dominant over a large part of Australia and New Guinea, but the present local forms did not exist. Under a variety of 

 names, the males only slightly differing from each other as a rule, but the females presenting every gradation of variation, 

 0. Poseidon has an immense geographical range ; for we meet with important local forms in the most widely separated 

 regions. The var. Pegasus, Kirsch, is found at Humboldt Bay in New Guinea, just within the Dutch territory, in 2° 37' 

 S. lat., and 140 45' E. longitude ; in the D'Entrecasteaux Islands, and Possession Bay ; In Kei or Evar Island — a 

 long narrow line of insulated land, extending from N.E. to S.W., and situated about 72 miles S.S.E. of the south coast 

 of New Guinea in about 5 18' to 6° 3' S. lat., and 132 18' 10 132 50' E. long., or thereabout. Great Kei Island or 

 Nuhu Yut is not more than 7 miles wide, and about 50 miles long : it is flanked on its lower western side by Little Kei 

 Island, and a group of still more westerly specks, such as Kei Tenimber Island, where 1 think Poseidon has been taken, 

 Tual, and Nubu Roa, &c. The variety Hecuba, Rober, inhabits Kei Island. 



From 75 to 80 miles east of this group are the Aru Islands, where, especially on Wokam, we obtain Aruana and 

 the green Bomemanni var. of Urvilliana ; the Aruana var. Valentina of Vuillot occurs at Port Moresby, on the western 

 side of Brit. New Guinea and again in New Britain. Varietal forms of Poseidon are also found in Waigeu (the Kirschi 

 representatives of Pegasus) ; it is also obtained from Salawatti ; from the Arfak Mountains of New Guinea ; from Duke 

 of York Island; from Torres Straits, sometimes like Aruana ; from the Aru Islands under Felder's name of Oceanus ; 

 from Stevensort in New Guinea ; from Fergusson Island (the Archideus of Gray) ; from Aru under the name Eumczus; 

 in New Guinea under the name of Cronius ; from Rawak under the name of Triton ; from Woodlark Island under the 

 name of Boisduvali ; and others from the Louisiade Archipelago and D'Entrecasteaux Islands, and Kiriwina in the 

 Trobriand Archipelago, East of southern New Guinea. It may be that many more localities might be cited for this 

 very variable species ; but I will leave that to the final geographical table at the end of the 2nd vol. of this monograph. 



Ornithoptera Urvilliana has a fairly extensive range : being found in New Britain, New Ireland, (Port Praslin), 

 New Guinea, the Solomon Islands (Aola, Fauro, Guadalcanar, &c), and [under the variety name of Cozhstis, des- 

 cribed by Mr. Rothschild in his " Novitates Zoologicse," Vol. V., p. 216, n. 1 (1898), as a subspecies], at St. 

 Aignan (or Misomay) Island, the most south-western of the Louisiade Archipelago. In these localities the green 

 tinted, or distinctly green forms are found chiefly in the islands of the Bismark Archipelago, where the ? ? at least are 

 difficult to separate from those of Aruana; and the blue and violet in the Louisiade Archipelago, where they are distinctly 

 smaller than the type, and in the Solomon Islands and New Guinea. Thus in this brief and necessarily imperfect review of 

 the distribution of the forms of the Genus Ornithoptera, as I have restricted it, we may, if we please, feel quite justified 

 in regarding Ornithoptera as really one species with a number of named varieties, (yet probably to be cousiderably 

 augmented), which has spread over an enormous extent of the East, from the Molucca Islands to New Guinea, thence 

 eastward and south-eastward to the Solomon Islands, north-eastward to the Bismark Archipelago ; and north, right 

 away to the very heart of Australia ; but the strongest fact is that the western, and ultra eastern forms really most 

 closely resemble each other, viz., the type form Priamus of Amboina and the Richmondia form of Australia. 



This suggests therefore that the least amount of variation from the original type took place during the southern 

 spread of the species, while the tendency was for the species to become smaller as it progressed in its southern migra- 

 tions ; at the same time as it progressed north and eastward an extraordinary amount of variation was accomplished — 

 the full extent of which we are not yet fully acquainted with. A further indication of this fact is that neither Priamus of 

 Amboina, nor Cassandra (Euphorion), or Richmondia of Australia vary to any extent in their own localities ; while of the 

 branching streams the endless amount of instability has been the cause of so many species having been founded. 



