THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 



What is gained by re-naming it, I am unable to see. The first mention of 

 polyxenes was in Fab. Syst. Ent., page 444, No. 10, 1775, the male being 

 described. Fabricius in 1787, in Mant. Ins., gives the same species 

 under the name of listerias, referring to Drury, vol. i, plate ii, for the 

 type, and quoting his own polyxenes as synonymous. 



Papilio glaucus. Under this name Linnaeus described the black 

 female of turuus, and it is only within the last ten years that it has been 

 generally known that glaucus was related to turnus. When glaucus is now 

 spoken of, it at once brings to mind this striking variety, and turnus var. 

 glaucus is a sufficient designation and answers every proper requirement. 

 It is eminently convenient that this variety should have its own designa- 

 tion, and by it, it is treated of in Wallace, Walsh, Darwin, Harris, and 

 other authors. I hope our lepidopterists will not be deluded into 

 changing these names by any supposed obligatory rule, for the simple fact 

 is, there is no obligatory rule in the case. 



Danais archippus. Mr. Kirby (187 1) gives the name of this 

 butterfly as erippus Cramer. Scudder (1872) gives it as plexippus Linn. 

 Scudder in 1863 gave it as erippus Doubleday (But. N. England.) Mr. 

 Scudder also read a paper by the late Dr. Harris before the Boston Soc. 

 Nat. Hist. (1859) showing that these and other names were remarkably 

 confounded, for example : " The bereiiice of Cramer is the erippus of 

 Fabricius, but not of Cramer, and it is the gilippus of Smith, but not of 

 Cramer and Fabricius ; the erippus of Cramer is the archippus of Fabri- 

 cius and of Smith ; it is also the same as the plexippus of Cramer, but 

 not of Linnaeus and Fabricius : the misippus of Fabricius is the archippics 

 of Cramer, but not of Fabricius and Smith : the erippus of Cramer is not 

 the erippus of Fabricius, and the misippus of Fabricius is not the misippus 

 of Linnaeus." And he gives a table " by which it will be seen that the 

 nomenclature of the three North American species has become confounded 

 with five others." In preparing the Synopsis of Butterflies of N. Am., I 

 had at hand all the above quoted works, and could make little of this 

 tangle 5 and as our northern species of Danais has been generally known 

 and written of and figured as archippus, I deemed it advisable to adhere 

 to that name as one resting place in a foggy sea. It is so figured in 

 Abbot & Smith, Boisduval & Leconte, and so called in Harris' Ins. Mass. 

 2nd Edition, which work I believe had the assistance of Mr. Scudder in 

 preparing for the press. 



