In directing the attention of the philosophic Zoologist to the above synopsis, we feel called upon to express our opinion on the unfortunate Denis De Montford, whose labours, however honoured in his own country, have neither been understood nor appreciated in this. We can say of him, what can be said of very few, that he had an intuitive perception of natural groups. And if we cannot place him on a par with his great rival Lamark, in the extent of his researches, or the polished accuracy of his names, we can safely affirm that in other respects, he is fully equal, either to him, or to any of his successors. There are some extraordinary analogies between the natural types of this genus, and the series of vertebrated animals, which we cannot at present develope. Nor can our doubts on the Sub-typical form, which we rather think has not been discovered, effect any alteration of the series here pointed out. * * * * * * [Illustration: POLYDORUS Thoas.] POLYDORUS Thoas, _Polydorus Butterfly_. ---- Sub-family Papilionæ. Genus Amphrisius. Sub-genus Polydorus. _Sw._ SUB-GENERIC CHARACTER. Anterior wings horizontally narrow and obtuse, posterior perpendicularly lengthened, and furnished with prominent spatulate tails; _Larva_ covered with fleshy tubercles; _Pupa_ braced and suspended, but with the head downwards. Types, Pap. Polydorus. Polystes. Romulus. &c. _Auct._ ---- SPECIFIC CHARACTER. _Anterior wings brownish black, with darker stripes between the nerves; posterior, black with a central five-parted spot of white; lunules round the margin, obscure above, bright crimson beneath._ Papilio Polydorus _Linn. Cramer. Pl. 128. f. a. b. Fab. Ent. Syst. 3. 1. p. 9. Ency. Meth. p. 72. No. 130. Horsf. Cat. pl. 3. f. 17. 17. a._ (_larva and pupa_). ---- Among the most remarkable of those laws which belong to the natural system, is that which assigns to every great division of our globe its peculiar races of animals: and these in numerous instances, are so marked, that a naturalist would no more expect to find such genera inhabiting a different continent, than a Physiologist would hope to discover a race of Hottentots among the Highlands of Scotland. It is under the tropical latitudes of the old world (and chiefly those of Asia), that nature has placed the group of butterflys which we now, for the first time, characterize. Distinguished, in the most beautiful manner, by their larva and pupa, they shew, even in the external appearance of the perfect insect, an unerring distinction, in the dark stripes between the nerves of the anterior wings. We have indeed, in the tropics of America, a race of black and crimson butterflys representing these of India; but they belong to a very different group; and are known at the first glance by their broader wings, totally destitute of the stripes just mentioned.