Page:Jardine Naturalist's Library Foreign Butterflies.djvu/121

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107

LEPTOCIRCUS CURIUS.


PLATE V. Fig. 1.


Swainson's Zoolog. Illus. 2d series, Pl. 106.—Boisduv. Spec. gener. 380.—Pap. Curius, Fabr.—Donov. Insects of India.—Erycina Curius, Godart, Ency. Meth.


This genus was first proposed by Mr. Swainson for the reception of a remarkable insect from Siam and Java, to which various situations had been assigned by different naturalists. In external aspect it has all the appearance of an Erycina, but, on examining the disposition of the nervures of the wings, the form of the palpi and antennæ, together with the structure of the feet, which are all complete in both sexes, its close affinity to the true Papiliones becomes apparent. The head and body are very thick; abdomen short; eyes large and salient; palpi very short, the articulations very indistinct; antennæ rather long, thickening at the extremity into a club which is slightly curved upwards. The anterior wings are nearly hyaline, and have the discoidal cell closed; the posterior folded longitudinally, and each drawn out into a very long tail curved at the extremity. The expansion of the wings, in the only known species, is about an inch and a half; the inner half of the superior pair black, traversed in the middle by a pretty broad green band; the exterior portion, consisting of a large triangular space, transparent, with the nervures and external border