OCCURRENCE OF ANOSIA PLEXIPPUS IN ENGLAND. 211 
- England. I made a note of it at the time in my journal, but 
did not send it for publication, as I did not feel quite positive. 
However, I think there can be little doubt about it. I have seen 
this fine butterfly so many times flying over and about ships I 
have been on in the Pacific, North American, Australian and 
other stations, also in their native haunts on shore, where, in 
some places, they were exceedingly plentiful, so it is not likely I 
could have been mistaken. It is a strong flier and asa rule flies 
high. When flying about a ship it generally keeps up aloft 
among the spars and rigging, where I have sometimes seen them 
settling down for the night. On shore I have seen them congre- 
gating in hundreds towards sunset, and taking up their quarters 
on the under-sides of drooping branches of forest trees and 
usually pretty high up. 
The following is an extract from my journal of October Ist, 
1917, while I was living at Instow, North Devon: ‘ Saw what I~ 
think may have been A. plexippus—a very large butterfly which 
came flying in from the sea—flapping along and soaring. It 
passed some fifty yards on one side of me at a height of about a 
hundred feet, so I could not make out its markings very 
distinctly, but it was a big, dark-looking butterfly, and if not 
plexippus I do not know what it could have been.” It was a 
lovely bright day with a very light N.E. breeze and I was in a 
marshy field near the beach, and the butterfly came straight in 
from the direction of Barnstaple Bar and the Bristol Channel. 
Of the few examples of this-species which have been taken 
in England I had the pleasure of seeing one alive. It was in 
September, 1885, while I was at Devonport paying off in H.M.S. 
‘“‘Hspiegle” after a four years’ commission on the Australian 
station. On the evening of the 24th of that month I accompanied 
my old friend, the late G. C. Bignell, to the house of Mr. F. F. 
Freeman, on the Hoe, to look at his collection of Huropean 
Rhopalocera. While we were there we discussed, among other 
things, the occurrence of plexippus on several occasions of late 
years in this country, and wondered how it managed to cross the 
Atlantic. The next day Mr. Freeman came to Devonport to see 
me and brought with him a living specimen of plexippus, which 
he had captured that morning in a street near the Hoe! Of 
course I was very pleased to see it, and thought it rather a 
curious coincidence after our conversation on the previous 
evening. It was a fine large example and in good condition. 
- The only record I can find of this capture is a brief notice in the 
‘Proceedings of the Entomological Society’ for October 7th, 
1885, where it states that ‘‘ Mr. F. F. Freeman sent a communi- 
cation recording the recent capture of a specimen of Danais 
archippus, Fabr., at Plymouth.” ; 
Dovercourt, Essex ; 
June i4th, 1921. 
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