ORDER IV. MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. 211 



The Genus Danaus, 



This is another genus of the Lejndoptera diurna, and a 

 large and numerous family of beautiful butterflies. Our 

 limits will not allow us more than to give their general 

 characteristics, and to describe one species, which is very- 

 common in this country as elsewhere, and which may be 

 considered a type of the whole. The butterflies of this ge- 

 nus are distinguished from all others by their large, round 

 wings, of a dark-red color, veined with black, and their long, 

 knobbed antennae. Their caterpillars are smooth, of a cy- 

 lindrical form, as also is their chrysalis, which is green, or- 

 namented with several golden spots. These insects feed 

 principally upon the poisonous leaves of the different spe- 

 cies of milk-weed (asclepias), and are found in all countries 

 where these plants gVow, which is the case in North and 

 South America, Africa, China, Hindostan, and Australia. 

 One of the handsomest and most common of this genus is 



The Berenice (Danaus Berenice), Fig. 55. On account 



Figure 55. 



The Berenice. 



of its beauty, this butterfly was named Berenice, after the 

 wife of Antiochus, King of Syria, universally considered the 

 loveliest woman of her age. It has dark-red wings, with 



