Page:Jardine Naturalist's Library Foreign Butterflies.djvu/222

176 MORPHO ADONIS.

PLATE XXII. Fig. 1.

Godart.—Pap. Adonis, Cramer, Pl. 61, fig. A, B; Herbst. Pap. Pl. 26, fig. 3, 4; Esper. Pap. Exotiques, Pl. 55, fig. 2.

a specimen of that division of Morpho which has the upper wings scarcely or not at all concave on their outer edge, and the anal angle of the under pair prolonged into an obtuse rudimentary tail, we have represented a species of great beauty although inferior in size to many of its congeners, the expansion of the wings seldom exceeding three inches and a half. The surface of the male, when seen in certain directions, is of the most brilliant azure-blue, the whole of the exterior margin of the primary wings surrounded with black, and near the apex are two small white spots, the anterior one longitudinal, the other orbicular. In the female the blue colour has not such a high degree of lustre; the posterior margin is widely black, and bears two rows of white spots in the upper wings and one row in the under. On the under side the colour is greyish-brown, with several common oblique bands of a paler hue, and three or four oblong ocelli with a white