GENERIC CHARACTER.
Antennæ thicker towards the tip and generally terminating in a knob: wings erect when at rest. Fly by day.
* DANAI CAND.
SPECIFIC CHARACTER
AND
SYNONYMS.
Wings entire, rounded, yellow, each of them beneath with a geminous or double silver spot.
Papilio Marcellina: alis integris rotundatis flavis: singalis subtus puncto gemino argenteo.—Fabr. Spec. Ins. 2. 49. n. 214.—Ent. Syst. t. 3. p. 1. 209. 654.—Cram. 14. t. 165.
Papilio Marcellina is a butterfly of peculiar simplicity and beauty in its general effect. The upper surface is of a fine yellow with a singular subocellate spot or stigma of a reddish brown in the centre of the anterior wings, and a series of double spots of the same colour, disposed towards the exterior margin both of the anterior and the posterior pair. The lower surface, as we perceive from the Butterfly at rest, with the wings erect in the upper part of the plate, is rather more of an orange or fulvous hue, and instead of having the disk immaculate like the upper surface, except the stigma in the anterior wings, are sprinkled with reddish brown. The centre of the wings, as well the posterior as the anterior pair, are marked with two silver spots, and which, from their near approximation, may be denominated, according to the language of Fabricius, a geminous or double spot of silver.
This elegant insect is figured from a specimen in the collection of the celebrated Dr. Hunter, the individual example described and referred to by Fabricius in his Species Insectorum and Entomologia Systematica as expressed among the synonyms above recited.
The Papilio Marcellina has appeared already in the costly work of Cramer, upon the Papiliones tribe, we are nevertheless induced to present a figure of the species to our readers, in order to point out the very close affinity that prevails between this insect and another much more frequent species named Papilio Sennæ. This latter mentioned Butterfly is figured by Sloane, Merian, and Seba; Papilio Marcellina by Cramer only. These insects resemble each other, but are nevertheless distinct; the specific character of Papilio Sennæ consists chiefly, according to Linnæus, in having the double spot in the centre of each wing of a ferruginous colour, while in Papilio Marcellina that characteristic mark has the exact appearance of two approximating spots of molten silver. The tips of the wings in Papilio Sennæ are sometimes spotted as in Marcellina and are sometimes destitute of spots.
Both these analogous species are natives of Surinam; Sloane describes Papilio Sennæ, in his Natural History of Jamaica, as an inhabitant of that island.