Page:Jardine Naturalist's Library Foreign Butterflies.djvu/270

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
206
RHIPHEUS DASYCEPHALUS.

classed with the Papiliones. But this anomaly is certainly a remarkable one, that it should combine clavate antennæ, with an arrangement of the alary nervures exactly corresponding to an insect with which in other respects it is so nearly identical. There being no other example of such a peculiarity, and the insect figured by Drury never having been found since, we are naturally led to suspect that he has been, in some way or other, under error. We have no doubt, however, that his figures afford a faithful representation of the specimen from which they were taken, as the drawings were made by Moses Harris, whose accuracy in such matters is well known. But there seems good reason to believe that the specimen in question has been originally defective, and that improper means have been taken to supply its deficiencies. By supposing that the head of a genuine papilio had been attached, in order to supply the want of that part in the specimen, and give it the appearance of being complete (a practice which has often been followed by amateur collectors), we get rid of the greatest objection to its being considered identical with Rhipheus. The want of the tails is easily accounted for, these appendages being so brittle when dry, that they are seldom preserved except in specimens which have received the utmost care. In other instances Drury has erroneously represented species as destitute of tails; we recollect in particular Satyrus Philoctetes. We mention these circumstances as affording means by which it is possible to account for the peculiari-