Mar. 31, 1908. The Queensland Naturalist. 
19 
upon them {Lepidoptera) or their n.embranous nature ; 
and in the latter case the presence of a sting {Hymenoptera) 
or its alscence {Neuroptera) were regarded as fundamental 
characters. 
The group of Aptera (Wingless Insects) contained an 
heterogenous residue of animals including all the crus- 
taceans, myriapods, spiders, ticks, mites, etc. 
The meagre treatment that Australian insects has 
received at the hands of Linnaeus finds its explanation in 
circumstances that have already been set forth, but seeing 
that the different genera that they comprise are in many 
cases represented in the faunae of countries that had been 
investigated at the time that Linnaeus wrote, many of the 
insect genera with which we are called upon to deal are 
Linnean ones. 
But eleven of our common butterflies bear names 
that this great Sweedish naturalist thought good to bestow 
upon them ; the Linnean species include, amongst others, 
the Red Wanderer — Danaus plexippus ; the one our youth 
name “ Purple Dot ” — Diadema bolina, and its two con- 
geners ; the beautiful northern red and purple C. Cydippe ; 
the Leaf Butterfly, Melanitis Leda ; two of our larger 
“ Whites ” — C. pyranthe and C. scylla ; a common “ Blue ” 
— P. boeticus ; a “ Yellow ” — T. hecabe ; and the “ Skipper” 
— T. augias. He also names the typical forms ef three of 
our “ Papilios ” — the “ Superb Blue ” — Papilio Ulysses ; 
P. Sarpedon (the “ Triangle ” of school boys) ; and P. 
agamemnon. Also that glorious giant butterfly, Ornithop- 
tera priamus — of which Queensland has three local races, 
and which he remarks is — “ Papilionum omnium Princeps 
longe augustissimus totus holosericeus, ut dubitem pulchrius 
quidquam a natura insectis productum.” The examples of 
a butterfly that to him was, as he here says, the most beautiful 
of Nature s creations in the insect world, wei*e derived in 
his case from Amboina, and not from our State, that also 
it adorns. 
Whilst referring to Linneeus’ work in connection with 
Animal life, allusion must be made to his successful method 
for the production of pearls through the stimulation of a 
pearl-yielding molluse, a method that he demonstrated 
before a select committee of the State Council in Sweden, 
in 1761, his art being at first kept secret, but made known 
eventually to a Gothenburg merchant for some monetary 
consideration. It appears that the fresh-water mussel 
Umo margaratifera, was the object of these experiments. 
ascertainable regarding Linnaeus’ connection 
with this discovery has been brought together by Prof. 
W A. Herdman in his Presidential Address for 1905, 
delivered before the Linnean Society of London, and finds 
place in its proceedings for that year. 
