THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 267 



imported specimen, as we are forty miles from London, and 

 sixteen or seventeen from Shoreham, — our nearest seaport, — 

 to which, 1 think, no American ships come. If you can 

 furnish any particulars as to larva, food-plant, chrysalis, and 

 their I'espective seasons, which may help me in my search for 

 it next year, I shall be much obliged. 



Thomas E. Crallan. 



Hayward's Heath, November 6, 1876. 



Danais Archippus. By J. Jenner Weir, Esq., F.L.S. 



The specimen of Danais Archippus, which Mr. Crallan 

 was kind enough to exhibit to me, and which forms the 

 subject of the above communication, presents the appearance 

 of a very fine female of the normal North-American type of 

 the species. It had apparently but just emerged from the 

 chrysalis, and ihere can be but little doubt that the larva had 

 been reared in the neighbourhood. The accidental appear- 

 ance of a North-American Lepidopteron in this country 

 would, under ordinary circumstances, be of trivial importance, 

 but there are reasons in the present case for attaching some 

 value to the fact above recorded. Danais Archippus is a 

 well-known American species, found as far north as Canada, 

 and by Mr. Bates as far south as the Amazonian district 

 {vide Trans. Linn. Soc, vol. xxxiii., p. 516). It has lately 

 become naturalised in New Zealand and Australia, and Mr. 

 Butler, of the British Museum, informs me it has been 

 received from New Guinea; a specimen has also this year 

 been taken near Neath, in Wales, as recorded in the 'Ento- 

 mologist's Monthly Magazine,' 1876 (p. 107). It is, therefore, 

 found distributed over a large part of the earth's surface, in 

 three of the six Zoogeographical regions now generally 

 recognised, viz. the Nearctic, Neotropical, and Australian ; 

 it is by no means improbable that the species may become 

 also naturalised in this the Paloearctic region. It becomes, 

 therefore, important that its earliest appearance in this 

 country should be recorded. A full account of the insect is 

 given by Mr. C.V. Riley, the State Entomologist of Missouri, 

 in his Third Annual Report, 1871 (pp. 143 — 152), and a copy 

 of his woodcut of the lull-grown larva is given herewith, in 



