Page:Jardine Naturalist's Library Foreign Butterflies.djvu/123

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THAIS MEDESICASTE.
109

hinder pair of wings is curved downwards as if to leave room for the movements of the abdomen. The caterpillars are short and cylindrical, covered with fleshy spines and short hairs, the first segment provided with a fleshy bifurcated tentaculum. They live solitarily or in small groups on the Aristolochia, and obviously bear a considerable analogy, as well as the perfect insect, to Parnassius. The chrysalis is cylindrico-conic, somewhat angular in front.

The species represented on the annexed plate may possibly be a variety of T. Rumina. Surface pale ochreous yellow, with a black marginal band divided on the upper wings by a series of eight or nine yellow spots; along the costal margin are several black irregular transverse bands, some of them inclosing rounded red spots; inferior wings with a black festooned line along the exterior border; towards the base are always three red spots, one near the abdominal margin, another in the upper part of the discoidal cell, and a third near the anterior edge, usually united in the form of a transverse band with that in the cell. Body blackish, marked with rows of fulvous spots.

The caterpillar lives on the Aristolochia pistolochia. Sometimes the colour is reddish-yellow, at other times brown or dull yellowish-green, with numerous rows of black lines often interrupted; the body bearing six rows of fleshy spines, of an orange yellow hue, and ciliated with black at the extremity.

The insect is found in Languedoc, in the neighbourhood of Digne, &c.