1904.] PACKARD— ORIGIN" OF MARKINGS OB^ ORGANISMS. 403 



employed on the U. S. Lake Survey he once saw a bird dart after 

 an Archippus butterfly, seize it and immediately drop it without 

 devouring the body. The butterfly dropped close by his side and 

 he picked it up and examined it, and had no means of accounting 

 for the singular action of the bird." 



The second case is thus mentioned by Mrs. Mary Treat : 



**The beautiful Archippus butterfly, Danais archippus, is a 

 common species and enjoys a wide range. It occurs in Upper 

 Canada and extends into South America, where, according to Prof. 

 Agassiz, it is common throughout the region of the Lower Amazon, 

 and in the Mississippi Valley it is one of the most frequent species. 

 This Archippus butterfly enjoys almost perfect immunity from 

 enemies. Neither birds nor any of the hymenopterous parasites 

 will interfere with it. It probably has a nauseous, disagreeable taste 

 that birds do not relish. Last summer a pair of kingbirds built 

 their nest on a low limb of a tree close to our door. They con- 

 sumed and fed to their young a great many butterflies, especially 

 the Rape butterfly. Toward evening they were very active, taking 

 indiscriminately all insects that ventured on the wing — great grass- 

 hoppers and cicadas, as well as butterflies. One evening several 

 Archippus butterflies came to their tree as they were fluttering 

 about fixing themselves on the branches for the night; the king- 

 bird very comically turned his head from side to side, eyeing them 

 closely; becoming satisfied with his observations he gave his head 

 a sudden jerk and vigorously wiped his bill on the limb, as if the 

 remembrance of the disagreeable morsel was enough to nauseate 

 him."^ 



The Heliconidae are said by Bates to have a peculiar smell. 

 According to Wallace {Contributiofis, etc., p. 78), when an ento- 

 mologist *' squeezes the breast of one of them between his fingers to 

 kill it, a yellow liquid exudes which stains the skin, and the smell 

 of which can only be got rid of by time and repeated washings." 

 Messrs. Walsh and Riley in their joint article on Anosia state : '* We 

 ourselves have never noticed any particular smell about it, but we 

 can add our testimony to the negative fact of its never being 

 attacked by any carnivorous animal, so far as our experience has 

 gone" {Affter. Ent.,l, 1^. 187). The nauseous secretion probably 

 emanates from the scales, as Burgess in his anatomy of the milk- 



1 From " Butterflies and Moths," by Mary Treat, in Hearth and Home, Vol. 

 4, Jan. 13, 1872, p. 25. 



