THE CANADIAN ENTOMOLOGIST. 9 
What is gained by re-naming it, I am unable to see. The first mention of 
polyxenes was in Fab. Syst. Ent., page 444, No. 10, 1775, the male being 
described. Fabricius in 1787, in Mant. Ins., gives the same species 
under the name of asferias, referring to Drury, vol. i, plate i, for the 
type, and quoting his own polyxenes as synonymous. 
PAPILIO GLAUCUS. . Under this name Linnæus described the black 
female of fwruus, and it is only within the last ten years that it has been 
generally known that glaucus was related to turnus. When glaucus is now 
spoken of, it at once brings to mind this striking variety, and /urnus var. 
glaucus is a sufficient designation and answers every proper requirement. 
It is eminently convenient that this variety should have its own designa- 
tion, and by it, it is treated of in Wallace, Walsh, Darwin, Harris, and 
other authors. I hope our lepidopterists will not be deluded into 
changing these names by any supposed obligatory rule, for the simple fact 
is, there is no obligatory rule in the case. 
Danais aRcHippus. Mr. Kirby (1871) gives the name of this 
butterfly as e22pus Cramer. Scudder (1872) gives it as f/exippus Linn. 
“Scudder in 1863 gave it as erifpus Doubleday (But. N. England.) Mr. 
Scudder also read a paper by the late Dr. Harris before the Boston Soc. 
Nat. Hist. (1859) showing that these and other names were remarkably 
confounded, for example: “The derenice of Cramer is the erippus of 
Fabricius, but not of Cramer, and it is the g%ppus of Smith, but not of 
Cramer and Fabricius; the erippus of Cramer is the archippus of Fabri- 
cius and of Smith; itis also the same as the Plexzppus of Cramer, but 
not of Linnæus and Fabricius: the mzs¢ppus of Fabricius is the archippus 
of Cramer, but not of Fabricius and Smith: the erzppus of Cramer is not 
the erippus of Fabricius, and the mzsippus of Fabricius is not the misippus 
of Linneus.” And he gives a table “by which it will be seen that the 
nomenclature of the three North American species has become confounded 
with five others.” In preparing the Synopsis of Butterflies of N. Am., I 
had at hand all the above quoted works, and could make little of this 
tangle ; and as our northern species of Danais has been generally known 
and written of and figured as archippus, 1 deemed it advisable to adhere 
to that name as one resting place in a foggy sea. It is so figured in 
Abbot & Smith, Boisduval & Leconte, and so called in Harris’ Ins. Mass. 
2nd Edition, which work I believe had the assistance of Mr. Scudder in 
preparing for the press. 
