Zoological Illustrations Series II/Plate 101



Anterior wings horizontally narrow and obtuse, posterior perpendicularly lengthened, and furnished with prominent spatulate tails; Larva covered with fleshy tubercles; Pupa braced and suspended, but with the head downwards.

Among the most remarkable of those laws which belong to the natural system, is that which assigns to every great division of our globe its peculiar races of animals: and these in numerous instances, are so marked, that a naturalist would no more expect to find such genera inhabiting a different continent, than a Physiologist would hope to discover a race of Hottentots among the Highlands of Scotland. It is under the tropical latitudes of the old world (and chiefly those of Asia), that nature has placed the group of butterflys which we now, for the first time, characterize. Distinguished, in the most beautiful manner, by their larva and pupa, they shew, even in the external appearance of the perfect insect, an unerring distinction, in the dark stripes between the nerves of the anterior wings. We have indeed, in the tropics of America, a race of black and crimson butterflys representing these of India; but they belong to a very different group; and are known at the first glance by their broader wings, totally destitute of the stripes just mentioned.

M. M. Latrielle and Godart, are evidently mistaken regarding the insect figured by Clerk, which they consider to be the female of Polydorus; this error we have ascertained from fine specimens of both sexes, sent from Java and now in our possession. We have figured the male, and Dr. Horsfield has enabled us to add the Caterpillar and Chrysalis.