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PS TCSTE. 
THE DOMESTICATION OF 
PAPILIO 
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THOAS (CRESPHONTES) IN 
DUCHESS, COUNTY, N.Y. 
BY WILLIAM BUCK DWIGHT, POUGHKEEPSIE, N. Y. 
Dr. E. L. Beadle, of Poughkeepsie, 
N. Y., noticed, on 8 Sept. 1880, some 
curious caterpillars feeding on a bush of 
Dictamnus fraxinella in his front lawn. 
The next day he sent several of these to 
me, and soon after imprisoned some 
more in a box at his house. Recogniz- 
ing them as papilios, but not being able 
to determine the species from the larva, 
I tended them until they assumed the 
chrysalis state the third week in Sep- 
tember. Four of them developed into 
butterflies during the last week in Feb- 
ruary 1881, and the first and second 
weeks in March; one more expanded 
early in April, about which time some in 
Dr. Beadle’s box also assumed the ima- 
go state. Ihad no difficulty in recog- 
nizing them at once as good specimens 
of Papilio thoas, whose proper home is 
on the orange tree in the southern 
states. I have since compared them 
with typical specimens, and find no es- 
sential difference. Dr. Beadle suggested, 
what seems to me very probable, that 
the eggs of these lepidoptera might have 
been brought here in the southern moss 
(in which orange leaves are very likely 
to be entangled) which is :packed about 
the Florida oranges landed here. 
On 30 March 1881, I announced the 
above facts in a paper read before the 
Poughkeepsie society of natural science. 
Attention having been thus called to the 
subject, this butterfly was found in sey- 
eral private collections here, its true char- 
acter not having before been recognized. 
As the spring opened, Mr. James M. 
De Garmo, of Rhinebeck, N. Y., set the 
boys in the academy of which he is the 
principal, on the lookout for these but- 
terflies, and they-found quite.a number 
before long. As the autumn came in 
they found them to be by no means rare. 
I had at first supposed that this insect 
was only partially domesticated, living 
solely in the cultivated grounds around 
our mansions, —on the Dictamnus frax- 
inella, and on the hot-house orange trees. 
Later in the season their frequency led 
me to suspect that they were more thor- 
oughly established. On 17 Sept. 1881, 
while making geological explorations in 
the woods four or five miles south of 
Poughkeepsie, I found quite a number 
of larvae of Papilio thoas feeding on the 
wild ‘* thorn bush,” Zanthoxylum amer- 
icanum, which, like the Dictamnus fraa- 
inella, is a member (with the orange) of 
the rutaceae, and has orange-scented 
leaves. These were on different bushes 
about a mile apart. Subsequently I also 
found some chrysalids of the same, sus- 
pended for the winter under the stones 
of farm walls. 
It is thus established that this south- 
ern papilio, which has already been re- 
ported in Canada, and six or seven of 
our northern States, is thoroughly domes- 
ticated in this part of New York state, 
finding an abundance of its orange- 
flavored food in our woods, and weather- 
ing our winters in safety. 
VASSAR COLLEGE, It FEB. 1882. 
