Zoological Illustrations Series II/Plate 110



The perfect insect, or butterfly, of this elegant species we have already figured at pl. 59 of our second volume: and that our illustration of a form so interesting may be complete, we have now delineated the caterpillar and the chrysalis, as given by Stoll; together with a sprig of the Cashew tree upon which it feeds. Every entomologist, upon looking to the perfect insect, will immediately be struck with its resemblance to the long-winged Heliconian Butterflys, and to the genus Euplœa, which is the Erycinian type of that family. Now this resemblance, which hardly requires pointing out, is a perfectly natural analogy; and is confirmed in the most remarkable manner by the caterpillar, which puts on that peculiar form which distinguishes Euplœa. The species in short, in every stage, exemplifies the truth of that fundamental law of nature which we have elsewhere so fully illustrated, viz. "that every natural group, contains representations of others in the same class," following each other precisely in the same series: thus establishing a truth which has long been suspected, but not before demonstrated, that the laws of variation are precisely the same in every group throughout the animal kingdom. The genus itself represents the Swallow-tailed types already figured (Podalirius, Protesilaus, and Leptocircus), but of the three remaining sub-genera of Marius, we are as yet ignorant. It is, however, by this genus that the two sub-families of Paphianæ and Heliconinæ are united; as it blends into the latter by means of the genus Fabius, which we shall shortly illustrate.