The buff-coloured yellow which spreads over the upper plumage of this bird, in some lights becomes much richer, and delicately gilded. The wings appear to be sea-green, but this colour only margins the borders of the feathers, the inner parts of which are blackish: the tail is coloured in the same way, the feathers divaricating from the middle, which is slightly forked. The black in front terminates at the vent; which, with the sides of the body, are waxen yellow. In the Ornithology of M. Vieillot, we find no mention of this well known bird by its long established name: but the _T. chloroptera_ of this writer, described as a new species, is evidently no other than the _flava_ of anterior authors. Our figure is of the natural size. The female is dark bluish green above, and buff beneath, much paler on the throat and breast: the chin and sides of the head blackish; and the crown buff-coloured yellow. We found this species not uncommon in several parts of Brazil, particularly round Pernambucco; frequenting the gardens, and feeding on the smaller-sized fruits. * * * * * * [Illustration: PAPILIO _Niamus_] PAPILIO Niamus. ---- Order Lepidoptera. G. Papilio. (_Auct._) GENERIC CHARACTER. Wings pale, with longitudinal bands: posterior lengthened, caudated; the tails long and acute. ---- SPECIFIC CHARACTER. _Wings yellowish white with black bands; posterior wings acutely tailed, with a black line and whitish lunule at the anal angle, and marked beneath with a macular red band margined with black._ Pap. Niamus. _Alis flavo-albidis, fasciis nigris; posticis caudatis, apice nigro lunulis albidis: his subtùs strigâ maculari rubrâ._ Latrielle et Godart. Ency. Meth. 9, p. 51. ---- To describe in detail those colours and markings of an insect, which the eye can embrace at a single glance on a well executed representation, is surely unnecessary. We shall therefore merely observe that this species has hitherto remained unfigured: that it is a native of Southern Brazil, and of such rarity, that in two years, we never met with more than one specimen. In some observations upon what appear to us the leading groups of the _Diurnal Lepidoptera_, published some time ago, we considered those groups wherein the anterior feet are perfectly developed, and the chrysalis braced by a transverse thread, as the most perfect and typical. Subsequent observations confirm us in this general view; but it still remains to be investigated, to which group the generic name of _Papilio_ should be retained. The wide dispersion of that form represented in the two European species _Podalirius_ and _Machaon_, and which form occurs in all the temperate and tropical regions of the globe, leads us to suspect it as the most typical group: to this, _Papilio Niamus_, from its very close affinity to _Podalirius_, unquestionably belongs. * * * * * * [Illustration: RHETUS _Cramerii_]