DANAIS. Bv Dr. A. Seitz. 75 



3. Family: Danaidae. 



The Danaids are a family which is very rich in species and almost entirely restricted to the tropical 

 and subtropical districts of both hemispheres. They are nearly everywhere the most prominent forms of 

 Lepidoptera, especially on account of their appearing in enormous numbers of individuals, also being domin- 

 ating as compared with all other insects on account of their bright colours, which contrast with the environment. 



The butterflies are mostly large, the wings being entire with smooth-edges, without appendages. 

 The cell always is closed in both wings. The upper discocellular of the forewing is absent or very short. 

 The foreleg is modified into a brush , especially in the cfcf . The antenna is always gradually thickened, 

 not being robust and having no distinct club. The scent-organs of the cfcf are well developed; these are 

 variously formed grooves and folds into which sometimes enter brushes or tufts of long hairs, or they are 

 velvety spots and discs. There are also characteristic white dots on the head and thorax of all the Danaids. 



The larvae are smooth, variegated, bearing fleshy filaments on the thoracical segments and on the 

 subanal rings; these appendages are not retractile like the fork in the neck of the Papilios, but the anterior 

 pair is movable and is often used as an organ of touch, the larva examining with it the place onto which 

 it is going to crawl. Most of the larvae of Danaids grow very quickly, developing into a short, stumpy 

 chrysalis, which freijuentl}' is ornamented with magnificent ridges of gold and sparkhng tubercles, or which 

 has a golden glitter over the whole surface. 



The butterflies have a very slow and awkward flight; they are gregarious, gathering often in large 

 swarms or dancing in dozens about the tips of branches and shrubs or congregating in dense masses to 

 rest on pendent branches, especially climbers. They are not at all shy and hardly endeavour to esca])e, 

 it being sometimes scarcely possible to scare them away from flowering trees which are loaded \vith swarms 

 of them. Like aU protected Lepidoptera, they are very tenacious of life; their thorax is soft like rubber, 

 containing an oily yellow liquid which occasions a nauseous, burning sensation on the tongue, when one 

 bites through such an insect (Haase). 



The few genera of Old-World Danaids mostly contain a very considerable number of forms, which 

 are so closely related to one another that dozens of them have often been treated as belonging to one 

 species. The Danaids are doubtless quite a recent group , the development into species frequently is still 

 incomplete, and their distribution-area becomes at the present period from year to year more extended 

 inspite of the low grade of adroitness in flight which these insects possess. 



The most notable development of the family is the purely Oriental genus Hesfia, consisting of trans- 

 parent white, black-marked forms of conspicuous size. These giants float like large Japanese paper-butter- 

 flies through the dense forests of the Oriental tropics, fluttering through the air with half-erect wings, often 

 without moving these for minutes when chasing each other in amorous plaj'. One sees them float up and 

 down especially at small brooks in the woods; their slow swinging movements afford such a strange spectacle 

 that even the uninterested people of the Eastern tropics have woven legendary lore around these Danaids. 



J. Genus : Dauai^ Lafr. 



Large brownish yellow or green butterflies, with black veins, the wings being large and stiff, the 

 antennae thin, hardly incrassate at the tip , and the palpi short and erect. Tongue always well developed 

 and strong. The butterflies when sucking hang clumsily at the flowers, mostly with closed wings, and with 

 somme caution may be caught with the fingers. — The larvae feed on Asclepiadeae; thej' are mostly ornamented 

 with bright rings and have fleshy filaments on the sides of the 3. segment, and two more, shorter ones, on 

 the 12. Pupa with golden ridges. — They inhabit all the hot countries of the globe, belonging there to 

 the every day occurrences, showing preference for the flowering gardens and enlivening the streets of the 

 towns in the tropics. The larger portion of the Palaearctic Region, however, harbours no representative of 

 this genus, which penetrates into the Region only from the South and West. Many species have immigrated 

 into the Palaearctic countries but during historical time. 



Perhaps mainlj^ in order to avoid loosing oneself among the large multitude of forms so similar to 

 each other, the old genus Danais has been split up in quite a number of genera, mainly based on differ- 

 ences in the secondary sexual characters. A more detailed account of these attempts at dividing the genus 

 will be given (in Tome III) when dealing with the Danaids of the Indo-Australian Region. 



D. chrysippus L. (28a). Honey-yellow, wings margined with black, the forewing with black apex dirysippus. 

 bearing a white sinuous oblique band accompanied by white dots ; costal area darker brown. On the Canary 

 Islands and the opposite districts of Morocco, also in North-East Africa: Egypt, Tripolis: in the whole of 



