THE STATE ENTOMOLOGIST. 143 



THE ARCHIPPUS BUTTERFLY— Danais archippus* Fabr. 



(Lepidopteia, Danaidte.) 



ITS NATURAL HISTORY. 



[Fig. 63.] 



" What more felicitie can fall to creature 

 Than to enjoy delight with libertie, 

 And to be lord of all the workes of Nature, 

 To raine in th' aire from earth to highest skie, 

 To feed on flowres and weeds of glorious feature." 



The Fate of the BwMej^y— Spenser. 



This beautiful butterfly, like most of the species of the family 

 to which it belongs, enjoys a wide range, occurring in the more north- 

 ern of the States and in Upper Canada and extending into Soutli 

 America, where, according to Mr. Bates, it is common throughout 

 the region of the Lower Amazons. f In the Mississippi Valley it is 

 one of our most common species. The family to which it belongs is 

 distinguished by the front legs being spurious or abortive ; by the 

 large cell in the centre of each wing being closed, and by the exist- 

 ence of a small nervule originating at the base of the front wing just 

 below the lower or sub-median nerve, and joining that nerve a short 

 distance from its base. J This nervule is so covered with scales that 

 it is hardly visible till they are removed. In the genus Danais the 

 sexes are readily distinguished by the male having a small hornv 



* Some late writers use the specific name erippus of Cramer, because it seems to have the pri- 

 ority. I have not all the works of the old authors to refer to, but Mr. Sanborn, of Boston, has 

 been kind enough to refer to them for me, and he writes that erippus was first applied by Cramer 

 to the $ in 1775, and plexippus to the $ by the same author in 1 780. Fabricius published his name of 

 archippus in 1793, and the name had already been applied by Cramer to the Disippus butterfly'. Ac- 

 cordingly Cramer's erippus has the priority: but as this insect has been very generally known bv 

 the name which Fabricius gave it, among entomological writers, and as it has become familiar to 

 the popular ear, I prefer to retain it — especially since it is no longer applied to the Disippus but- 

 terfly. 



fTrans. Linnasan Soc, Vol. XXIII, p. 516. 



JMr. Bates in a note to the paper already referred to, (p. 497,) gives this as a constant and ex- 

 cellent character discovered by Dr. C. FeKler, of Vienna, and describes it as "a small nervule at 

 the base of the fore-wing median nervure which anastomoses with the median a short distance from 

 ts origin." I have no means of referring to Dr. Felder's original article, and cannot say whether 

 e is correctly quoted ; but in the two N. A. species of the genus (D. archippus and bcrenice) this 

 hervule originates below and anastomoses with sub-median nerve. 



