THE 



A^'OL. 1. 



ST: LOUIS, MO., JUNE, 1869. 



NO. 10. 



CIjc §.mciicHiT dtntonToIocjbt. 



PUBLISHED MONTHLY BY 

 R. F. STTJDLE-S- Ss CO., 



104 OLIVE STBEET, ST. LOUIS. 



TK ItMS One doUiir per amiimi in ailvanoe. 



EDITORS : 



r.KX.r. U. WALSH Kock island, III. 



CIIA.S. V. IllLEY, 2130 Clark Ave St, Louis, Mo. 



•/ IMITATIVE BUTTERFLIES. " 



TJici-c is jb-particfilai- group of Butterflies, 

 wliidi is known to entomologists as the Danais 

 family, and of which the very common N. A. 

 siiccics, represented on page 191 (Fig. 132) may 

 he taken as an example. The difterent 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 sudden skips and jerks in 

 their travels through the air, as do the little 

 butterflies known as Skippers (ResjJeria 

 family). Hence we cannot assume that they 

 arc 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 hypothesis. Indeed, so far is it 

 fi'om being the case that it is their mode of 

 flight which enables them to escape from their 

 cannibal foes, that Mr. H. W. Bates, the Eng- 

 lish naturalist, who spent eleven years in the 

 Valley 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 confirmation of this 



idea, he remarks that they all of them without 

 exception have a peculiar smell.* So far as 

 regards the single species belonging to this 

 grou]) 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 group of Butterflies, the 

 Pieris family, to which appertain the two com- 

 mon white butterflies (^Pieris oleracea and P. 

 Protodice) found respectively 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 Valley of the Amazon; 

 but instead of the species being exceedingly 

 abundant in 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 cither group (Leptalis 

 and Ithomia) being, according to 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 gi-eat 

 rarity of tlie particular genus named above 

 {Leptalis) the fact could not be established so 

 far as regarded that one geiiusj. 



It must be observed that the usual colors found 

 in the ditt'erent species of the Danais family are 

 red, yellow, orange, white and black; and 

 those found in the ditferent species of ihc 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 define 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 Kingdom each 

 group wears a peculiar livery, not only as 

 regards the shades of coloration, but as regards 

 the pattern of coloration. This livery indeed 



* See Mr Bates's Paper in Trins. Linnaan Society, Vol. 

 .Will., p. .'JlO. 

 t Ibid., p. 50.5. 

 Xlbid., p. 511, 



