Zoological Illustrations Series II/Plate 125



The Butterflys composing this remarkable genus are perhaps the most splendid insects in creation. No art can effectually represent the changeable and resplendent green which relieves the velvet black of the wings, and which varies with every change of light. The typical species are found in Tropical America, where they fly with amazing rapidity, and perform, like their prototypes the Swallows, annual migrations. When at rest, the anterior wings are flat or horizontal, but only slightly spread. The present species appears confined to Surinam.

Modern systematists have been peculiarly unfortunate in the location and construction of this group; while the name of Urania, bestowed upon it by Fabricius, has long been appropriated to a genus of plants. Linnæus, more correctly, placed it with the genuine Papiliones; a station which is confirmed by the details of its structure: the anterior feet, like those of Leptocircus, figured at pl. 106, being provided with that short spiney process, which is a peculiar distinction of this sub-family. The analogies which result from this location of Leilus are beautiful, and almost interminable. It is the representation of the Noctuidæ and of the Hesperidæ in its own circle; and of the fissirostral tribe of birds; all these being modifications of the natatorial type of the VERTEBRATA.