THE 



VOL. 1. 



ST. LOUIS, MO., JUNE, 1869. 



NO. 10. 



CIjc ^.mcricaii (iBuiamologbt. 



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i;EN-.r. U. WALSH Hock Island, 111. 



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I.MSTATIVE liUTTRKFLlES. 



Tlii-re is a particular group of Butterflies, 

 which is kuown to entomologists as the Danais 

 iaiiiily, and of wliicli the very common N. A. 

 species, represented on page 11)1 (Fig. 132) may 

 be tatcen as an example. The different species 

 belonging to this group are most of them 

 remarkable for occurring in very great numbers 

 in those countries which they inhabit. Their 

 wings are rather longer than usual, but their 

 flight, compared with that of many other Butter- 

 flies, is slow, and they do not dodge and zig-zag 

 about, with many snddeu skips and jerks in 

 their travels through the air, as do the little 

 butterflies known as Skippers {Resperia 

 family). Hence we cannot assume that they 

 are enabled, by their peculiar mode of flying, to 

 escape to a great extent those cannibal animals 

 that would otherwise catch and devour them; 

 and if we propose to account for their prodigious 

 abundance at all, we are driven to have recourse 

 to some other liypothesis. Indeed, so far is it 

 from being the case that it is their mode of 

 flight which enables them to escape from their 

 .iiunibal foes, that Mr. 11. W. Bates, the Eng- 

 lisli naturalist, who spent eleven years in the 

 N'alley of the Amazon Kiver, studying the 

 Natural History of the insects of that region, 

 where this particular group of Butterflies is 

 very copiously represented, declares that he 

 never saw a single one of them attacked by any 

 cannibal foe whatever, whether Bird, or Dragon- 

 fly, or Lizard, or Asilus-fly. Hence he infers, 

 with great appearance of reason, that they 

 must be from some cause or other unpalatable 

 to animals of prey ; and in coidirmation of tliis 



idea, he remarks that they all of them without 

 exception have a peculiar smell.* So far as 

 regards the single species belonging to this 

 group which is found in the Northern States, 

 namely that shown on page 191 (Fig. 132) we 

 ourselves have never noticed any peculiar smell 

 about it ; but we can add our testimony to the 

 negative fact of its never being attacked by any 

 carnivorous animal, so far as our experience has 

 gone. 



There is another grouji of Butterflies, the 

 Pieris family, to wliicli appertain the two com- 

 mon white butterflies (Pieris oleracea and P. 

 Protoclice) found respectivel}' in the Northern 

 and in the more Southerly States. This group 

 is also represented by many species, as we learn 

 from Mr. Bates, in the Vailey of the Amazon; 

 but instead of the species being exceedingly 

 abundant iii individuals, as in the case of those 

 belonging to the Danais family, it is quite the 

 contrary ; the proportion between the number 

 of individuals belonging respectively to two of 

 the commonest genera of either group {LcptiiUs 

 and Ithomia) being, according 16 that author, 

 only as 1 to 1000. f Hence it is reasonable to 

 infer that this group must be much persecuted 

 by cannibal foes, as was found by Mr. Bates to 

 be generally the case, although from the great 

 rarity of the particular genus named above 

 (Leptalis) the fact could not be established so 

 far as regarded that one geiiust. 



It must be observed that the usual colors found 

 in the difterent species of the Danais family are 

 rod, yellow, orange, white and black; and 

 those found in the different species of the Pieris 

 family are white and black, the white sometimes 

 more or less tinged with greenish yellow. Some 

 persons, perhaps, may consider that it is a vain 

 and fanciful notion thus to deflne what are the 

 colors of a whole group of insects; but it is 

 none the less true that, not only in Insects, but- 

 throughout the whole Animal IvJngdom each 

 group wears a peculiar livery, not only as 

 regards the shades of coloration, but as regards 

 the pattern of coloration. This livery indeed 

 •s*s I'upei- in Trans. Linnccan Sociehj, Vol. 



x\il!., p. : 



t ibid, p 

 \ lbU.,\>. 



511.). 



