Z THE ENTOMOLOGIST S EECORD. 



up into five blotches. Beneath, all the wings are concolorous, but 

 more faintly black." The entry in the 12th edition of the Sy sterna, 

 p. 767, No. 177 (1767) is exactly a duplicate of that in the 10th edition. 

 In all these descriptions there is the most explicit reference to the 

 white fascia which the Indian insect has, but which the American has 

 not ; moreover, the statement that plexipims is like clirysippus is true of 

 the Indian, but not of the American species. When we turn to the 

 references given by Linnaeus to other authors, it will be seen that they 

 relate to the American species ; but there are so many discrepancies 

 between Linnaeus' descriptions and his references that the latter cannot 

 be assigned a very high value as evidence in any particular instance. 

 Besides references to Petiver's Museum, 58, 527, and to Ray, 138, 3, we 

 find '* Sloan. Jam. 2, p. 214, t. 239, fig. 5, 6," and " Catesb. Car. 2, 

 t. 88." The first of these is to " A voyage to the Islands Madeira, 

 Barbadoes, .... and Jamaica, ivith the Natural History . ... of the 

 last of these Islands, by Hans Sloane, M.D. ; in the second volume of 

 this work (1725) is a description and a cojDper-jDlate uncoloured figure, 

 under the name of Papilio Jaemaicensis major, of a butterfly that is 

 certainly not the typical American species, but agrees with it in not 

 possessing any white fascia. The other reference is to a work by 

 Mark Catesby entitled The Natural History of Carolina, Florida and 

 the Bahama Islands; in the second volume of this (1743) is a typical 

 coloured figure of the American butterfly. The description and the 

 references being at variance then, it seems more reasonable to give the 

 former the greater evidential value, and by its aid to arrive at the 

 conclusion that it was the Indian insect Avhich Linnaeus described under 

 the name P. plexippus, although it is impossible to determine what led 

 him into the error of giving it a North American habitat. This 

 conclusion is confirmed by the evidence of Aurivillius, who in 1882 

 published, in Komjl. Sv. Vet. Ahad. Handl., a paper entitled " Eecensio 

 critica Lepidopterorum Musci Ludovic(T Ulricie qua? descripsit Carolus 

 A. LinnS. In this he states that the two specimens now remaining in 

 that Museum are of the Indian insect, and that Clerck's figure (in 

 Icones Lis. III. (inedit) t. 5, f. 1, 1764) is also of the same. It must 

 be remembered that all Clerck's figures are said to have been made 

 from specimens in that Museum ; the copy of Clerck's Icones in the 

 British Museum Library does not contain the third part mentioned by 

 Aurivillius, and it has therefore been impossible to verify his statement. 

 On the other hand, Aurivillius states that in what he calls Schedula, 

 and which he sjieaks of as older than the 10th edition of the Systema, 

 there is a description of the insect by Linnaeus which contains no 

 allusion to the white fascia nor any mention of China as a habitat. If 

 this Schedula be, as I imagine, a MS. document preserved in the archives 

 of the Museum, it cannot be allowed to militate against the conclusion 

 arrived at on the evidence afi'orded by the first published description in 

 the 10th edition of the Systema. 



In the cabinet of Linnaeus, at present in the possession of the 

 Linnsean Society, we find in one drawer a specimen of the American 

 butterfly labelled " Archippus, Fab., Marsham," and immediately under- 

 neath it, four specimens of the Indian ])utterfly labelled plexippus ; in 

 another drawer is another specimen of the former labelled " Archipjms, 

 Abbot t. 6. Georgia." This evidence is of no value quoad Linnanis, as 

 it is clear that the American si^ecijuens could not have been labelled, 



