RHQPALOCERA MALAYAN A. 823 



biological value, Papilio km its species existing in what may almost be called small 

 " coteries,*' and thus kaa always been divided with facility into groups, which possess the 

 advantages of genera, minus the true structural definitions. , Divided in such groups the genus 

 has been studied by some authors (as subsequently detailed} who have done so much to enrich 

 our lepidopteral literature by a number of epoch -marking memoirs, and as the name Papilio 

 is so universally known and used in connection with these hutterllics, the writer wiil certainly 

 pause before supporting a system which, though corn et in classiik-atory practice, is likely to 

 add new terrors to those numerous observers and lovers of nature who give us so many facts, 

 and receive from cabinet entomologists so many divisional husks in return. 



Taking the three genera thnithoptcni, Papilio, and Leptocircus as representing this 

 subfamily (for these alone are found in this fauna) we can obtain an approximate idea as to the 

 number of species known in entomological literature. In 1S52 Mr. G. B. Gray published his 

 Catalogue of the Pupilloniihe, and enumerated 337 species; in 1854 (1 and li. Felder, in their 

 * Species Lepidopterornm — PapiliouidaV were able to give the names of species, whilst 

 subsequently Mr. Kirby, in his Catalogue, issued in 1871 and his supplemental list to 1877, 

 only recognises 398 species.* The Malayan region is exceedingly rich in Papiliamtite, aud 

 this, as Mr. Wallace has pointed out, can be readily appreciated by " comparing the number of 

 species found in the different tropical regions of the earth."! The genus Papilio is almost 

 ubiquitous, but Onuthoptem and Lf.pt wiir.its are confined to the Eastern tropics. 



During the last few years great attention has been paid to tbe anal structure of ins eels, 

 as a guide to specific and generic division. J In this country two memoirs describing these 

 organs in the Rhopalocera have been recently published* The one by Ih\ Buchanan White, 

 "On the Male Genital Armature in the European Rhopalocera," § and the other by 

 Mr. P. H. Gosse, " On the Clasping Organs ancillary to Generation in certain Groups of 

 the Lepidoptera/ 1 1] which is confined to the Pajrilioiiime alone. Dr. White's studies led him 

 to the conclusion that in the structure of these parts *' not only generic, but in many (if not in 

 every) species good specific characters are to be found." Mr. Gosse, however, does not speak 

 in this unqualified sense, for though he observes that out of the number of specimens he had 

 examined he had not found " any two species whose apparatus is alike, or even so nearly alike 

 that a moment's observation is not sufficient to show the difference," yet he adds: — " It might 

 seem that, by the aid of organs so uniformly present, so easily examined, and so varied 



The discrepancy between tin; figures of the FeMers iuuI Kiiby is due to the different, estimate of the value of species 

 ln-lil \\\ tin authors, many which are specifically ri: cruised :m<i ilcscnliL-il hy the lirst being ^iiiijily treated as varieties b\ the 

 ■econd. Even then too much statistical reliance must not be placed DO Mr. Kirby "h estimate, a* in his pjrtofaftl Vp&BXM oi 1871 

 he ha* criticalhj enumerated the species, whilst in his Bupiiliuieiil lie h:is merely nrurtlt ii the recently deHcnUid species. 

 This author lias since estimated the species of the g< mi* J'ujjilio uluiie us uIh.uu OiH) ttWell'* Nat. Hi^t. vol. vi. p. OiJj. 



Of ether collections we have tin: following published hi formation : — The Natural History Museum at Leyden, in 1 HtX f, 

 contained, according to Snellen van VolleuJioveu, 158 species iTijil. Knl. iii. pp. 70 — 8Mj. In llsTt! three other Catu I Eiguen wme 

 published. The first refers to the species contained in the collection of Menu l-h. Oherthlk »t Hennas*, mid M'd specie* me 

 recorded [• Etudes d'EntoinoIogio,' Quatr. Livr.). The second is Mr. Kirby's 'Cat. Goll. Diurn. Lep. formeil by the lots 

 \V» C. iJewitsou," in which 889 species are catalogued. The third refers to tin- pftDftCtion in the Museum of Science and Art, 

 Dublin, is Likewise made by Mr. Kirby, fJ -od enumerates i£20 species [Scietit, l J roc. lloy. l>ubl. Soc. 1879). Of purely Uu ul 

 collections that contained in the late Museum of the East India Coiup:ui , niuy K- men tumcil, which numbered Oti species 

 collected in the Indo- Malayan region alone ^Horsf. Jt Moore, Cat. Lep. Mus. E, ].C\ vol. i. 1807, 



* Trans. Linn. boo. vol. Jtxv. p. 27 llWfifn. 



; This has been recently mid exhaustively studied and described in the Trichoptcra of the European famni hy 

 Mr. li. M'Lachlau, and in the llhyuchutal subfimuly Ctjttuintr by l>r. V. Siguuret, 



? Trans. Linn. Sue. ser. 2, Zoo), vol. i. p. 857 11877), || Ibid. vol. ii. p. 1W5 (IttWJJk 



