to the well-known P. Erechtheus, of Australia. The most common form of the female also resembles that of P. Erechtheus; but a totally different-looking insect was found by myself in the Aru Islands, and figured by Mr. Hewitson under the name of P. Onesimus, which subsequent observation has convinced me is a second form of the female of P. Ormenus. Comparison of this with Boisduval's description of P. Amanga, a specimen of which from New Guinea is in the Paris Museum, shows the latter to be a closely similar form; and two other specimens were obtained by myself, one in the island of Goram and the other in Waigiou, all evidently local modifications of the same form. In each of these localities males and ordinary females of P. Ormenus were also found. So far there is no evidence that these light-coloured insects are not females of a distinct species, the males of which have not been discovered. But two facts have convinced me this is not the case. At Dorey, in New Guinea, where males and ordinary females closely allied to P. Ormenus occur (but which seem to me worthy of being separated as a distinct species), I found one of these light-coloured females closely followed in her flight by three males, exactly in the same manner as occurs (and, I believe, occurs only) with the sexes of the same species. After watching them a considerable time, I captured the whole of them, and became satisfied that I had discovered the true relations of this anomalous form. The next year I had corroborative proof of the correctness of this opinion

by the discovery in the island of Batchian of a new species allied to P. Ormenus, all the females of which, either seen or captured by me, were of one form, and much more closely resembling the abnormal lightcoloured females of P. Ormenus and P. Pandion than the ordinary specimens of that sex. Every naturalist will, I think, agree that this is strongly confirmative of the supposition that both forms of female are of one species; and when we consider, further, that in four separate islands, in each of which I resided for several months, the two forms of female were obtained and only one form of male ever seen, and that about the same time, M. Montrouzier in Woodlark Island, at the other extremity of New Guinea (where he resided several years, and must have obtained all the large Lepidoptera of the island), obtained females closely resembling mine, which, in despair at finding no appropriate partners for them, he mates with a widely different species-it becomes, I think, sufficiently evident this is another case of polymorphism of the same nature as those already pointed out in P. Pammon and P. Memnon. This species, however, is not only dimorphic, but trimorphic; for, in the island of Waigiou, I obtained a third female quite distinct from either of the others, and in some degree intermediate between the ordinary female and the male. The specimen is particularly interesting to those who believe, with Mr. Darwin, that extreme difference of the sexes has been gradually produced by what he terms sexual selection, since it may be

supposed to exhibit one of the intermediate steps in that process, which has been accidentally preserved in company with its more favoured rivals, though its extreme rarity (only one specimen having been seen to many hundreds of the other form) would indicate that it may soon become extinct.

The only other case of polymorphism in the genus Papilio, at all equal in interest to those I have now brought forward, occurs in America; and we have, fortunately, accurate information about it. Papilio

Turnus is common over almost the whole of temperate North America; and the female resembles the male very closely. A totally different-looking insect both in form and colour, Papilio Glaucus, inhabits the same region; and though, down to the time when Boisduval published his "Species Général," no connexion was supposed to exist between the two species, it is now well ascertained that P. Glaucus is a second female form of P. Turnus. In the "Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Philadelphia," Jan., 1863, Mr. Walsh gives a very interesting account of the distribution of this species. He tells us that in the New England States and in New York all the females are yellow, while in Illinois and further south all are black; in the intermediate region both black and yellow females occur in varying proportions. Lat. 370 is approximately the southern limit of the yellow form, and 42° the northern limit of the black form; and, to render the proof complete, both black and yellow insects have been bred from a single batch

of eggs. He further states that, out of thousands of specimens, he has never seen or heard of intermediate varieties between these forms. In this interesting example we see the effects of latitude in determining the proportions, in which the individuals of each form should exist. The conditions are here favourable to the one form, there to the other; but we are by no means to suppose that these conditions consist in climate alone. It is highly probable that the existence of enemies, and of competing forms of life, may be the main determining influences; and it is much to be wished that such a competent observer as Mr. Walsh would endeavour to ascertain what are the adverse causes which are most efficient in keeping down the numbers of each of these contrasted forms.

Dimorphism of this kind in the animal kingdom does not seem to have any direct relations to the reproductive powers, as Mr. Darwin has shown to be the case in plants, nor does it appear to be very general. One other case only is known to me in another family of my eastern Lepidoptera, the Pieridæ; and but few occur in the Lepidoptera of other countries. The spring and autumn broods of some European species differ very remarkably; and this must be considered as a phenomenon of an analogous though not of an identical nature, while the Araschnia prorsa, of Central Europe, is a striking example of this alternate or seasonal dimorphism. Among our nocturnal Lepidoptera, I am informed,

many analogous cases occur; and as the whole history of many of these has been investigated by breeding successive generations from the egg, it is to be hoped that some of our British Lepidopterists will give us a connected account of all the abnormal phenomena which they present. Among the Coleoptera Mr. Pascoe has pointed out the existence of two forms of the male sex in seven species of the two genera Xenocerus and Mecocerus belonging to the family Anthribidæ, (Proc. Ent. Soc. Lond., 1862); and no less than six European Water-beetles, of the genus Dytiscus, have females of two forms, the most common having the elytra deeply sulcate, the rarer smooth as in the males. The three, and sometimes four or more, forms under which many Hymenopterous insects (especially Ants) occur, must be considered as a related phenomenon, though here each form is specialized to a distinct function in the economy of the species. Among the higher animals, albinoism and melanism may, as I have already stated, be considered as analogous facts; and I met with one case of a bird, a species of Lory (Eos fuscata), clearly existing under two differently coloured forms, since I obtained both sexes of each from a single flock, while no intermediate specimens have yet been found.

The fact of the two sexes of one species differing very considerably is so common, that it attracted but little attention till Mr. Darwin showed how it could in many cases be explained by the principle of