PLATE XV. Fig. 3.
_Godart._--Pap. N. Orithya, _Linn. Fabr._--_Roesel’s Beslust. Insect._
vol. iv. pl. 6, fig. 2.--Pap. Orithya, _Cramer_, Pl. 19, fig. C, D;
Pl. 32, fig. E, F; Pl. 281, fig. E, F: Pl. 209, fig. A, B, C, D.
This very elegant species, which is a native of China and the island of
Java, is subject to much variation in its colour and markings. In its
most ordinary state the colour of the surface is velvet-black in the
male and dark brown in the female, with two large ocelli on each wing
having a violet-blue pupil and a yellowish-red iris. The costa of the
primary wings is generally dull white, and towards the base are two or
three transverse stripes alternately blue and tawny-yellow; towards the
apex are three whitish bands, the interior one broadest, the middle
one interrupted by the ocellus, the third narrow and lying along the
external margin. The secondary wings are surrounded by a white band
divided throughout its whole length by a double undulating black line;
the space between this band and the middle of the wing bluish-green
in the male, a colour which scarcely appears in the female, and the
anterior portion generally black in the former sex. Under side pale,
the transverse stripes much elongated and six in number; the under
wings greyish-brown or greyish-white, with several obscure undulating
lines towards the base, with a row of four or five unequal ocelli
having a blue iris in the female, but almost obsolete in the male. Body
black above, greyish beneath.
The figure represents a variety of the female, the same as that
delineated by Cramer.
The caterpillar, beset with branched spines, is of a black colour with
numerous scattered white points, and has a white line along each side
above the legs, and two rows of yellowish brown spots.