Fine specimens of the male are more than seven inches across
the wings, which are velvety black and fiery orange, the latter colour
replacing the green of the allied species. The beauty and brilliancy of
this insect are indescribable, and none but a naturalist can understand
the intense excitement I experienced when I at length captured it. On
taking it out of my net and opening the glorious wings, my heart began
to beat violently, the blood rushed to my head, and I felt much more
like fainting than I have done when in apprehension of immediate death.
I had a headache the rest of the day, so great was the excitement
produced by what will appear to most people a very inadequate cause.

I had decided to return to Ternate in a week or two more, but this grand
capture determined me to stay on till I obtained a good series of
the new butterfly, which I have since named Ornithoptera croesus. The
Mussaenda bush was an admirable place, which I could visit every day
on my way to the forest; and as it was situated in a dense thicket of
shrubs and creepers, I set my man Lahi to clear a space all round it, so
that I could easily get at any insect that might visit it. Afterwards,
finding that it was often necessary to wait some time there, I had a
little seat put up under a tree by the side of it, where I came every
day to eat my lunch, and thus had half an hour's watching about noon,
besides a chance as I passed it in the morning. In this way I obtained
on an average one specimen a day for a long time, but more than half
of these were females, and more than half the remainder worn or broken
specimens, so that I should not have obtained many perfect males had I
not found another station for them.

As soon as I had seen them come to flowers, I sent my man Lahi with a
net on purpose to search for them, as they had also been seen at some
flowering trees on the beach, and I promised him half a day's wages
extra for every good specimen he could catch. After a day or two he
brought me two very fair specimens, and told me he had caught them in
the bed of a large rocky stream that descends from the mountains to the
sea abort a mile below the village. They flew down this river, settling
occasionally on stones and rocks in the water, and he was obliged to
wade up it or jump from rock to rock to get at them. I went with him
one day, but found that the stream was far too rapid and the stones too
slippery for me to do anything, so I left it ent