PDF - Wallace Online

386 TROPICAL NATURE vmetallic colouring surpass anything found in the wholeeastern hemisphere, if not in the whole world.In the Andaman islands, in the Bay of Bengal, there are aconsiderable number of peculiar species of butterflies differingslightly from those on the continent, and generally in thedirection of paleror more conspicuous colouring. Thus twospecies of Papilio which on the continent have the tails black,in their Andaman representatives have them either red orwhite-tipped. l 2Another species is richly blue-banded whereits allies are black ;while three species of distinct genera ofNymphalidae 3 all differ from their allies on the continent inbeing of excessively pale colours as well as of somewhat largersize.In Madagascar we have the very large and singularlywhite -spotted Papilio antenor, while species of three othergenera 4 are very white or conspicuous as compared withtheir continental allies.Passing to the West Indian islands and Central America(which latter country has formed a group of islands in veryrecent times), we have similar indications. One of the largestof the Papilios inhabits Jamaica, 5 while another, the largestof its group, is found in Mexico. 6 Cuba has two of the samegenus whose colours are of surpassing brilliancy 7 while the;fine genus Clothilda confined to the Antilles and CentralAmerica is remarkable for its rich and showy colouring.Persons who are not acquainted with the importantstructural differences that distinguish these various generaof butterflies can hardly realise the importance and thesignificance of such facts as I have now detailed. It maybe well, therefore, to illustrate them by supposing parallelcases to occur among the Mammalia. We might have, forexample, in Africa, the gnus, the elands, and the buffaloes,all coloured and marked like zebras, stripe for stripe overthe whole body exactly corresponding. So the hares, marmots,and squirrels of Europe might be all red with blackfeet, while the corresponding species of Central Asia were all1Papilio rhodifer (near P.doubledayi), and Papilio charicles (near P.memnon). 2p ap iiio mayo .3 Euplaea andamanensis, Cethosia biblis, Cyrestis codes.4 Danais nossima, Melanitis massoura, Diadema dexithea.6 Papilio homerus. P. daunus. 7 P. gundlachiamis,P. villiersi.