The butterflies arranged together under the above name are, in many respects, the most remarkable of any to which our attention has yet been directed. In size they are superior to all the other diurnal lepidopterous tribes, except the Ornithoptera, and many of them rival even that conspicuous group in their dimensions. Although surpassed by many others of their tribe in elegance of form and harmonious blending of colours, they afford examples of as rich tints as are to be found in any other natural objects. The blue which adorns the whole surface of M. Menelaus and Adonis, has a beauty and lustre which it is impossible to witness without admiration. When flying under the blaze of a tropical sun, the brilliancy of the surface, as contrasted with the dark hue of the under side, as they are alternately displayed, must render them very striking objects. Most of them are from South America, but a few occur in the eastern parts of India and the great islands of the adjacent Archipelago.

The generic characters are more determinate than is the case with many others of this order. The antennÆ are slender, linear throughout their whole length, or thickening so insensibly towards the extremity as to deviate but slightly from that shape. The palpi are placed close together, ascending, and clothed with scales, the terminal portion narrow and very much compressed: abdominal margin of the inferior wings curved downwards, and forming a deep groove for receiving the body. Discoidal cell of the posterior wings open behind; claws bifid. The caterpillars vary in form, as well as the chrysalides, and may probably, if more fully known, enable us to subdivide this family into more natural groups.

MORPHO HELENOR.
PLATE XXI.

This affords an example of that section of the genus in which the upper wings are more or less concave on the outer margin, and the inferior pair without any prolongation behind. They are almost exclusively South American. M. Helenor expands from four to five inches; surface black, with a broad band of silvery blue or violet blue, extending from the middle of the anterior margin to the anal extremity; sometimes rather narrow and well defined on the inner edge, at other times enlarged to within a short distance of the base of the wings; at the anterior extremity of this band, on the costa, there is an oblique white patch, and beyond it, on the upper wings, a single row of small white spots in the male, and two in the female. The secondary wings have an indistinct row of red crescents near the hinder margin, and the sinuosities in all the wings are white. The colour beneath is dark brown, the upper wings with three large ocelli having a white pupil surrounded with ferruginous and violet, the iris yellow, enclosed in a green circle which has a crescent of the same colour on the inner side; under wings with four similar ocelli, three of them contiguous, the interior one insulated. Towards the base of both wings are several transverse flexuose green stripes, and along the outer edge three greyish lines, more or less interrupted with red, especially in the hinder wings. The body is black above and brown beneath.

The insect occurs in Guiana, Brazil, &c.

In the variety figured there are a few yellow streaks on the under side of the anterior wings, and a red stripe at the base of each wing; at the same time the three posterior ocelli are prolonged into a point, and a spurious ocellus is observable adjoining the anterior one.

Found not unfrequently in many countries of South America.

MORPHO ADONIS.
PLATE XXII. Fig. 1.

Godart.—Pap. Adonis, Cramer, Pl. 61. fig. A, B; Herbst. Pap. Pl. 26, fig. 3, 4; Esper. Pap. Exotiques, Pl. 55, fig. 2.

As a specimen of that division of Morpho which has the upper wings scarcely or not at all concave on their outer edge, and the anal angle of the under pair prolonged into an obtuse rudimentary tail, we have represented a species of great beauty although inferior in size to many of its congeners, the expansion of the wings seldom exceeding three inches and a half. The surface of the male, when seen in certain directions, is of the most brilliant azure-blue, the whole of the exterior margin of the primary wings surrounded with black, and near the apex are two small white spots, the anterior one longitudinal, the other orbicular. In the female the blue colour has not such a high degree of lustre; the posterior margin is widely black, and bears two rows of white spots in the upper wings and one row in the under. On the under side the colour is greyish-brown, with several common oblique bands of a paler hue, and three or four oblong ocelli with a white pupil and a black iris surrounded by a yellow ring; the anal angle marked with short undulating black lines. Body brownish-black above, concolorous with the same face of the wings beneath.

Found in various parts of South America, but apparently most plentiful in Brazil and Guiana.