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Show 1886.] MR. H. J. ELWES ON THE GENUS PARNASSIUS. 17 Though the genus Parnassius has hitherto been included in the family of Papilionidae, yet it seems to me worthy to constitute a separate family, comprising the genera Eurycus, which is confined to North Australia and New Guinea, Euryades, which is found in the Argentine States, and Luhdorfia, which is an inhabitant of the southern coasts of Amurland and probably North Japan. In making this proposal, I do so on the ground that the extraordinary appendages of the female abdomen, which are found in these four genera alone among the Ehopalocera, and which, though very different in structure, are apparently analogous, afford a character of at least as much, if not of greater, value in classification than the characters drawn from legs, venation, antennae, or larval structure. And though my ignorance of larval characters among Lepidoptera generally, makes me unable to form an opinion as to their value for purposes of classification, yet they apparently lead to the grouping of very dissimilar forms. Mr. W . H. Edwards remarks on the subject in ' Papilio/vol. hi. p. 159 :-" I do not think, judging from the egg and young larva as I know them, and by the mature larva and pupa as figured in books, that Parnassius has any right among the Papilionidee. Under a system in which the preparatory stages were considered-and in the future we shall have to come to that-it would stand a long way from the Papilionidee. The egg of smiutheus is like Lyccena ; of baldur like Chrysophanus ; the young larva is like some Nymphalidee (and perhaps Erycinidse), the mature larva more like a Heterocerous moth (in all but the tentacles), and the chrysalis like a Hesperian, or also perhaps some moths." In 1870 the late Edward Newman published in the 'Entomologist ' a system of classification for Butterflies, in which he places Parnassius in the second division of the Rhopalocera, which he called Celantes, forming with Doritis the Group A, Bombyciformes. The division is defined as follows :-" Celantes, or those in which the larvae, prior to changing to pupa?, envelope themselves in a silken follicle or cocoon more or less compact; the pupee are generally without angles, like those of the genus Chelonia among the Sessiliventres." The Bombyciformes are those in which the head of the larva is smaller than the second segment, and the body is altogether that of the Bombyces. The Capitati, which form the second section of this division, are the Hesperidae, in which the head of the larva is larger than the second segment. Now, without expressing any opinion on the propriety of such a classification, it is clear that any arrangement which depends on larval characters must in the case of very many genera be conjectural. Newman criticizes the classification of Kirby's catalogue very unfavourably, saying that his subfamily Papilioninse is entirely opposed to his own idea of natural arrangement. The genera Kirby included are Mesapia, Calinaga, Hypermnestra, lsmene, Doritis, Parnassius, Eurycus, Euryades, Sericinus, Thais, Teinopalpus, Papilio, and Leptocircus. Staudinger includes Parnassius with Papilio, Thais, lsmene, and Doritis, in his family Papilionidac, which comes at the head ot the PROC. ZOOL. Soc-1886, No. II. 2 |