Insects abroad : being a popular account of foreign insects, their structure, habits, and transformations . e sexes. The first illustration shows the uppersurface of the male insect. The upper pair of wings are velvetblack and emerald green, the colours being disposed as shownin the illustration. The green is more or less speckled withblack, which appearance is shown by the microscope to be dueto missing scales. The ornithological reader will probably re-member that the black spots which are so often found on thebreasts of humming-birds are produced in a similar manner, the 540 [NSECTS ABROAD.
Insects abroad : being a popular account of foreign insects, their structure, habits, and transformations . e sexes. The first illustration shows the uppersurface of the male insect. The upper pair of wings are velvetblack and emerald green, the colours being disposed as shownin the illustration. The green is more or less speckled withblack, which appearance is shown by the microscope to be dueto missing scales. The ornithological reader will probably re-member that the black spots which are so often found on thebreasts of humming-birds are produced in a similar manner, the 540 [NSECTS ABROAD. feather being either altogether missing or tucked under its neigh-bours. The lower wings are mostly green, with a decided goldengloss, and on the inner edge they have a fringe of very long, palebrown, soft hairs, which are, in fact, nothing but lengthenedscales. The under surface, as shown in the second illustration, is alsogreen and black, the former colour taking a blue tint in themiddle of the wing. The abdomen is bright kings yellow,looking just as if it had been painted in body colour. The thorax. Fig. 291—Papilio pronoimis. Male. Upper side.(Black and sreen.) is velvet black, but upon each shoulder there is a large tuft ofbrilliant crimson hairs, that produce a wonderfully fine contrastwith the black and green of the wings. The third figure represents the under surface of the female,and the reader can easily see how the two sexes can be mistakenfor different species. The female is very much larger than hermate, and coloured after a totally different fashion. The wingsare mostly black, but not of the rich velvet-like hue which dis- DISTINCTIONS OF SEX. 541 tinguishes the male, and the light-coloured marks upon the upperwings are white. The lower pair of wings are also dull black,relieved by large yellow marks, which are apt to fade into yel-lowish grey. The abdomen is yellow, but not nearly so brightas in the male. Almost the only point of resemblance between
Size: 1600px × 1562px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, booksubjectinsects, bookyear1883
