PAPILIO IX. 
taken in our Sierras and in Colorado, have strayed from their original birth¬ 
place. I have seen it now from Mendocino County; from Knight’s Valley, in 
Sonoma County; and the examples taken by Mr. Dwindle were taken near the 
fishing-station, McCloud River, Shasta County. Now these localities are all in 
what is called the Coast Range of mountains, lying far west of the Sierra Ne¬ 
vada, but connected with this range here and there by ridges of hills. Knight’s 
Valley is only about 350 feet above the sea, McCloud River about 1,000, and the 
summit of the Sierra, where I saw the examples in July, about 8,000, so that 
the species varies much as to its altitude.” 
Mr. Mead, who collected in northern Colorado for several months, in 1871, did 
not encounter this species there, nor did Lieut. W. L. Carpenter, U. S. A., who 
subsequently made extensive collections, both in northern and in southern Col¬ 
orado; and Mr. H. K. Morrison, who brought, in 1877, an immense collection of 
butterflies from southern Colorado, saw nothing of Indra. Nor has it appeared 
from New Mexico, Arizona, or Montana. The metropolis of the species seems 
to be in western California, as stated by Mr. Henry Edwards. 
The principal difference between Indra and Brevicauda, apart from the absence 
of orange in the former, and the presence of this color in a varied and often ex¬ 
cessive degree in the latter, and which may be owing to climatal effect, consists 
in the markings of the abdomen and in the length of the tail. In Indra the ab¬ 
domen of the male is wholly black, excepting a yellow stripe on the side near 
extremity; in the female this is shown to be part of a stripe which extends the 
length of the abdomen, but which, except just at the extremity, is faint and 
nearly obsolete. This stripe on an otherwise black body is a characteristic of 
Zolicaon, and is there distinct. But in the Asterias group, while the body is 
black, instead of a lateral stripe, there are lines of small yellow spots, and these 
are found in Brevicauda. At the opposite extreme from Asterias, Machaon has 
the abdomen black above, but elsewhere yellow, with narrow lateral and vertical 
black lines. All these species, except Asterias, have the markings of the wing 
alike in both sexes, but in the latter species there is much difference in this re¬ 
spect. The series runs Machaon, Zolicaon, Indra, Brevicauda, Asterias. 
The resemblance between Indra and Brevicauda, one at the extreme West, the 
other at the extreme East, and both restricted to very narrow limits, is sugges¬ 
tive of a period when both were represented by a single species which occupied 
the northern parts of the continent. This struck me when considering the 
peculiarities and the isolation of Brevicauda, and when I had only that species in 
view, and now the study of Indra seems to render the conclusion to which I 
then inclined more probable, — that these two species represent . most nearly 
the primitive form from which the Machaon and Asterias groups have de¬ 
scended. 
