DAKAIS ARCiriPPUS, ANOSIA PLEXIPPUS, OR WHAT ! 6 



probably were not placed in the drawer, until after the cabinet reached 

 this country in 1788 ; it is, however, important as indicating the opinion 

 of Dr. Smith, who purchased the cabinet and who himself wrote on the 

 lepidoptera of Georgia, that it was the Indian species that Linnasus 

 called plexippus. 



The testimony of Fabricius also leads in the same direction. To 

 estimate its value aright we must bear in mind that, according to a 

 letter written by him to Eev. W. Kirby, dated March 28th, 1803, and 

 quoted in Zoologist, 1852, p. 3544, Fabricius had lived two whole years 

 in the gi-eatest intimacy with Linna3us, and, we must further remember, 

 that the latter spoke of the former as a gi-eater entomologist than him- 

 self. It is reasonable therefore to conclude that the disciple was well 

 acquainted with the specimens of his great master. Fabricius in 

 Entomologia Systematica, Vol. III., p. 49, No. 150 (1793) describes the 

 American species under the name P. arcMppus and says that it differs 

 from P. plexippus, Linn, by being rather larger and by lacking the 

 fascia on the fore-wings, in place of which it has somewhat fulvous 

 blotches. He gives plexippus, however, an American habitat and says 

 nothing about Asia in connection with it. 



Cramer, however, in Papillons Exotiques, Vol. I., p. 4., pi. 3., fig. a-b, 

 had, as early as 1779, described and figured a butterfly from Brazil 

 under the name of P. erippus, which is now universally recognised as a 

 variety of the American insect ; Cramer himself speaks of a species 

 from New York which differs but little from his erippus, and in his 

 3rd volume (1782) figures it under the name of P.plexippris, remarking 

 that this is probably the insect Linnteus indicated by the name on 

 account of the habitat he mentions. In the same volume Cramer 

 describes and figures the Indian species under the name of P. genntia. 



The name erippus has never come into general use ; for three- 

 quarters of a century, archippus was the trivial name by which the 

 American species was most frequently designated, although pJexippus 

 had a few adherents scattered over that period, notably amongst 

 American authors. 



Hiibner's action is interesting. In Sammlung exotischer Schmetter- 

 linge, Bd. I, pi. 20, fig. 1, 2 (1806?), he figured the American butterfly 

 under the name Limnas ferrugineaplexippe ; in the Verzeichniss helcannter 

 Schmetterlinge (1816) he placed plexippus, which he then specifically 

 identified as the genutia of Cramer, together with chrysippus in one 

 genus ; and in another, a species to which he gave the name menippe and 

 which, by his synonymic references, we ascertain that he identified 

 with erippus. Cram, and archippus, Fb. ; finally in the 2nd volume of the 

 Sammlung exotischer Schmetterlinge, pi. 7, fig. 1, 2 (1820-1?) he figured 

 another form of the American species under the name of Anosia 

 megalippe. The absence of letterpress, relating to the species, fi'om the 

 copy of this latter work which is in the British Museum Library, 

 deprives us of all chance of ascertaining the reasons which led to these 

 frequent changes of trivial name, but it is clear that though at the 

 outset lliibner supposed plexippus, Linn, to be the American, he sub- 

 sequently came to the conclusion that it was the Indian species. 



The revival in modern times of the claim, on behalf of the Ameri- 

 can butterfly, for the name j^lcxipjyus dates, as far as I can discover, from 

 1875 ; in that year, Scudder, in " A Synonymic List of the Butterflies 

 of North America " published in the Bulletin of the Bujfalo Society of 



