'4JCy^ AND ^^^^ 



JOURNAL OF VARIATION. 



No, 1. Vol. V. January 15th, 1894. 



Daiiais archippus, /Inosia pleXippus, op Wliat? 



By F. J. BUCKELL, M.B. 



By what name ought we to call the butterfly which, as regards its 

 generic designation, sometimes figures as Anosia, sometimes as Danais, 

 whilst for its trivial name some use arcMpjms, others erippus, and still 

 others plexippiis ? Dealing first with the trivial nomenclature, it will 

 be necessary, before an answer to the above question can be given, to 

 determine what insect it was that Linnaeus described under the name 

 of Papllio plexippiis. Two rival claimants for this honour are in the 

 field ; one, which we may call the American butterfly, is widely 

 distributed in America, has been recorded from some of the islands of 

 the Pacific, and occurred sparingly in southern and western England 

 in 1885, but is not found in India and China ; the other, which may be 

 distinguished as the Indian butterfly, is found in India and China but 

 not in America. The rivals are sharply differentiated by the presence 

 in the Indian species of a white fascia, made up of five blotches of 

 varying size and shape, which crosses from the costa to about the 

 middle of the hind margin of the fore- wings ; otherwise the general 

 facies is much the same in both. 



The first published description (as will be seen hereafter, there is 

 reason to suppose that there was an earlier MS. description) by 

 Linnseus of the insect which he named P. plexippus is to be found in 

 Systcma Naturae, Ed. X., p. 471, No. 80 (1758) a translation of which 

 is as follows : — " Wings entire, fulvous ; with dilated black veins and 

 a black margin with white dots. Habitat, North America. Fore- wings 

 with a white fascia as in the next species (P. chrysippus) which it 

 resembles." In the Museum Ludovicce tJlricce (which is a description of 

 the contents of the Royal Museum), p. 262, No. 81 (1764), China is 

 added to North America as the habitat of the species, and the following 

 more extended description given : — " Body black, it as well as the head 

 and neck being spotted with white on the sides and beneath. Antennas 

 black, clubbed. Feet bluish black. All the wings fulvous, rounded, 

 hardly manifestly toothed, with the surfaces concolorous. Margin 

 black, with white dots arranged in a double row. Black veins, very 

 broad, run through the area of the wings, by which characteristic it is 

 easily to be distinguished from the rest. Fore-wings with broad black 

 apices, in which part, near the white dots, is also a white fascia broken 



