Page:Jardine Naturalist's Library Foreign Butterflies.djvu/107

99 PAPILIO ÆNEAS.

PLATE II. Fig. 2.

have figured this insect as characteristic of a pretty extensive group of butterflies inhabiting South America, distinguished by a peculiar outline, and a certain similarity of design in the markings. The space between the tips of the anterior wings always exceeds by more than one half the space between the anterior edge of these wings and the hinder margin of the posterior pair; that is to say, the width of the insect, with its wings expanded, is more than double its length. The ground colour of the wings is generally deep black, with one or two insulated patches of some light colour on the disk of the anterior pair, and a large blood-red patch in the middle of the hinder wings; the latter deeply dentated on the margin, but without a tail. In P. Æneas the upper wings expand about three inches and a quarter: they are velvet-black, becoming lighter towards the apex, with a pretty large green spot, of a somewhat quadrangular shape, towards the interior border, surmounted by three smaller