176 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



other of the Wmdward Islands, but very httle is said about Bar- 

 bados. 



Barbados is remarkably poor in its lepidopterous fauna. This 

 poverty is no doubt caused by the absence of forest and unculti- 

 vated underwood in the island. Every part is cultivated for the 

 sugar-cane, with the exception of that district known as St. 

 Andrew's Parish, the central part on the eastern side, which 

 contains the highest elevation, the largest stream, and a gas-jet 

 called " the boiling spring." But, speaking generally, the island 

 of Barbados may be described to-day in the words of John Pieid, 

 who, speaking of the island in a letter dated Aug. 5th, 1665, 

 says it is one great garden, no less pleasant than fruitful, but 

 now wholly given to sugar-cane. Every available acre is and 

 always has been under cultivation, and to this must no doubt be 

 ascribed its extreme poverty of lepidopterous insects. 



Schomburgk states that occasionally one or other species of 

 larvae shows itself in prodigious numbers, but (fortunately for the 

 vegetation) this dors not occur frequently. It is recorded that 

 in 1846, at Colleton, in Barbados, a field of sweet potatoes 

 (Batata edulis), consisting of about ten acres, was deprived of its 

 leaves in one night by the larvfe of a Chan-ocampa, a sphingid 

 moth. Of the nocturnal Lepidoptera of the Antilles, few have 

 been described, and not one of these, says Sir Eichard Schom- 

 burgk, is known to be in Barbados. I myself collected from the 

 frangipanni-trees many larvae of Choerocampa nechus. 



The following is Schomburgk's list of Antillean Heterocera*: — 



Macroglossa tantalus, H.-S., Corr. Bl. p. 56. 



Callionime parce, Fabr. 



Philempeliis labniscce, Linn. 



Choei'ocainpa nechus, Fabr. ; C. thorates, Hiibn. 



Anceryx ello, Linn. ; A. obsciira, Fabr. 



Amplwnyx duponchelii, Boisd. 



Urania sloaneus, Cramer. 



Empyrema pmgione, Cramer. 



Eucliromia parthenis, Fabr. 



Decopeia ornatrix, Cramer. 



Schomburgk only mentions two butterflies, i. c, Papilio poly- 

 damas and CalUdryas nmrcellina. The former of these two is 

 found in Brazil, Honduras, and Jamaica ; the latter is common 

 to Venezuela, Guiana, Brazil, and Bolivia. 



I myself have caught at Hastings (in Barbados), in November, 

 numbers of Danais archippus, and one hereomorphic form of 

 the same. There is a lield (locally called "savannah"), near 

 the Marine Hotel, Barbados, where the food-plant of D. archip- 

 pus {Asclepias curasavica) grows in abundance ; and here, in 



''•'• I hope to say something in a future paper about the synonymy of the 

 Lepidoptera as given in Sir B. ychomburgk's Hst printed above. — S. C. 



