[31] “Contributions to the Theory of Natural Selection,” pp. 168–173.
In a very small collection of insects recently brought from Duke-of-York Island (situated between New Britain and New Ireland) are several of remarkably white or pale coloration. A species of Euplœa is the whitest of all known species of that extensive genus; while a beautiful diurnal moth is much whiter than its ally in the larger island of New Guinea. There is also a magnificent longicorn beetle almost entirely of an ashy white colour.[32]
[32] These insects are described and figured in the “Proceedings of the Zoological Society,” for 1877, p. 139. Their names are Euplœa browni, Alcides aurora, and Batocera browni.
From the Fiji Islands we have comparatively few butterflies; but there are several species of Diadema of unusually pale colours, some almost white.
The Philippine Islands seem to have the peculiarity of developing metallic colours. We find there at least three species of Euplœa[33] not closely related, and all of more intense metallic lustre than their allies in other islands. Here also we have one of the large yellow Ornithopteræ (O. magellanus), whose hind wings glow with an intense opaline lustre not found in any other species of the entire group; and an Adolias[34] is larger and of more brilliant metallic colouring than any other species in the archipelago. In these islands also we find the extensive and wonderful genus of weevils (Pachyrhynchus), which in their brilliant metallic colouring surpass anything found in the whole eastern hemisphere, if not in the whole world.
[33] Euplœa hewitsonii, E. diocletiana, E. lætifica.
[34] Adolias calliphorus.
In the Andaman Islands in the Bay of Bengal there are a considerable number of peculiar species of butterflies differing slightly from those on the continent, and generally in the direction of paler or more conspicuous colouring. Thus two species of Papilio which on the continent have the tails black, in their Andaman representatives have them either red or white-tipped.[35] Another species[36] is richly blue-banded where its allies are black; while three species of distinct genera of Nymphalidæ[37] all differ from their allies on the continent in being of excessively pale colours as well as of somewhat larger size.
[35] Papilio rhodifer (near P. doubledayi), and Papilio charicles (near P. memnon).
[36] Papilio mayo.