1076 NOTES AND EXHIBITS. 



Mr. Masters exhibited some specimens of Danais Petilia, Stoll 

 aud Danais Clbrysipinis, Linn., with the following explanatory 

 note : — 



" Among a considerable collection of Rhopalocei'ous Lepidoptera 

 made by Mr. W. W. Froggatt, at or near King's Sound, N. W. 

 Australia, during this summer, I find severed specimens of what 

 is without doubt the Danais Petilia, Stoll ; and as it is a species 

 about which many mistakes have been made, a short explanatory 

 note seems not undesirable. Danais Petilia was first described 

 and figured in Stoll's Suppl. to Cramer's Papil. p. 132, PI. 28, fig. 

 3, (1790), and again described by Godart in the Ency. Method. 

 Hist. Nat. t. ix, p. 139-41 (1819). Both these authorities give 

 as the habitat of the species, China, the Cororaandel Coast, 

 and the Island of Java. I cannot say when Australia was 

 first given as a locality, but I think that in Doubleday 

 and Westwood's "Genera of Diurnal Lepidoptera" Vol. 1, 

 published in 1850, the only habitat given foi' Danais 

 Petilia, Stoll, is " Australia generally." In the same publi- 

 cation Danais cl try sip-pus, Fabr., one of the most common 

 of Australian Butterflies, is not mentioned as Australian at all. 

 In Kirby's Catalogue of Diurnal Lepidoptera (1871), the habitat 

 ascribed to D. Petilia is simply Australia, aud to D. chrysippus 

 " Orbis antiq." In my Catalogue of the Diurnal Lepidoptera of 

 Australia, published in 1873, I placed D. Petilia on the list, on 

 the authority of Doubleday and Westwood, and Kirby, though I 

 had never seen a specimen of it, and I replaced D. clirysi'ppu9 on 

 the list, because I had myself seen numberless specimens from N. 

 8. Wales and Queensland. To this several Lepidopterists demur ; 

 Mr. Miskin (1) asserts boldly that D. chrysippus and D. Petilia 

 are one and the same s[»ecies, while Mr. A. G. Butler (2) 

 unhesitatingly declares both Mr. Miskin and myself to be wrong, 

 that D. chrysippus is never found in Australia, and that D. Petilia 

 is the common species of this country. Mr. Semper also in his 

 list of Rhopalocera (3) makes a similar mistake. That it is a 



(1) Trans. Ent. Soc. 1875, p. 244 ; (2) Trans. Ent. Soc. 1285, p. 8; (3) 

 Journ. Mus. Godeff. Heft 14, p. 141 (1879). 



