RHOPALQCERA MALAY AN A. 



883 



observed several species to "take long circuits, returning after the lapse of a few minutes in 

 the same direction, and often in precisely the same track they have just passed over, I have 

 often, in the old cotton-fields of East Florida, waited hy tlie side of a large bush of some 

 Vaccinium f or AndTameda t for a specimen of P. ajax, which I had seen pass it ; and my patience 

 in remaining quiet for a few minutes has mostly been rewarded by its capture." * 



As already remarked (anlca, p. 32*2) t Papilio, although treated here as a single genus, 

 possesses structural characters which in other families have been — and by myself in this 

 work— used to denote generic separation, and though several lepidopterists are now proposing 

 tliis course with PapiUo, the work^as been already exhaustively done by C. and R. F elder in 

 their * Species Lepidopterorum, * in which the structural details which separate their sections 

 and sn flections are fully ami carefully given, ao that the work of the generic creator in 

 Papilio is almost merely that of a proposer of new generic names. I have also followed the 

 method of specific grouping proposed by Mr* A- R. Wallace in his well-known memoir, "On 

 the Papilionidfc of the Malayan Region/' 



Prof. Wood-Mason has drawn attention to " mimicry M among several Indian species 

 which belong to "scentless" groups, and which "mimic" other species belonging to t( strong- 

 scented and nauseous" groups. I 



NOX Group. 



a. ttw-group. Wallace (part),* Trans. Linn. Soc. vol. xxv. p. ii8 1 1865). 

 Sect, LXYI. ot LXYIL, Feldei\ Spec. Lepi.l. Vh\k pp. 87, 8^-5 11864). 



Abdominal fold in 6* very large ; anal valves small but swollen ; posterior wings simple or cantlately 

 produced. 



This is a small group of obscurely coloured species, which is almost confined to the 

 Indo-Malayau region, and particularly well represented in the island of Borneo. The females 

 are larger and always somewhat more brightly coloured than the males. In the Philippine 

 species P. scmperi t Fold., the posterior wings are caudately produced. § 



Two species only are known to the writer as found in the Malay Peninsula. A third — 

 P, nox, Swains. — has been recordeil by Mr. Wallace as found at Penang, on the authority of 

 a male specimen contained in the British Museum, but this appears to be incorrect, as 

 Mr. Butler, who kindly looked into the matter for me, writes " locality Penang is not attached 

 to our P. iiojf, and docs not exist in our Register. The specimen was presented by 

 Dr. J. Hooker." 



* Gen. Diurn, Lep. vol. I p. 7. 



1 Amj r ,v Ml};. Nat. Hist., February, 188ii. p. LOif. Mr. W, - Mason in this parser promised a niore exhaustive memoir 

 on the subject, "Notes on the Phenomena of Mimicry, us exemplified by the Papiliouidte of our North-eastern Indian 

 Possessions," ft publication which lias not yet appeared. 



', Mr. Wallace proposed to include here tin 1 hl Indian Philo^t nuS'^roa^ but this seems better treated separately by [he 

 Feldors in a separate section (Sect. LXIX. — Spec. Lopid. Tap. pp. iJ7 and 80), sinco goner icallv named ttyata by Mr. Moore 

 (Prop. Zool. fsoc. p. itf8). 



£ Mr, Wallace lias also given the larval characters of thi* and the two following— Coon and Pottfttorttt — groups, as 

 " Larva. .shurt, thick, with nmncrom tloshy tubercles: purplish." I have not relied on these characters, as the litV-lu-t-ry of' 

 ail the butttfrllies inchidwl in the groups are not known; mid though analogous reasoning would \'vim to a similarity of larval 

 Hiarftrtor, we must not forget that in nature it is the unexpected that is m frequently discovered. 



Sept. 25, 1885. ^ <j 



