280 Transactions.—Zoology. 
Mr. R. W. Fereday, of Canterbury, has a paper on the Waimarama 
butterfly, in Vol. VI. of the ** Transactions of the N.Z. Institute." In that 
paper Mr. Fereday mentions two species (or varieties) D. erippus and D. 
archippus, specimens of both being in the Canterbury Museum. The 
former, D. erippus, having been sent from Melbourne ; the latter, D. 
archippus, from San Francisco. Mr. Fereday doubts our New Zealand 
butterfly being distinet from D. erippus ; at the same time he prefers giving 
it the specific name of berenice—which has superseded that of erippus in 
some published catalogues. 
Mr. Fereday further says, that Mr. Nairn, of Poureerere, had found 
some larve of this insect on plants of Gomphocarpus ovata growing in his 
garden. It is not at all unlikely that the “ cotton plants," whence Mr. 
Huntley obtained his specimens, were a species of Gomphocarpus, from the 
scrap of a spinous capsule, or follicle, I found remaining in the box ; but 
the leaves were long and lanceolate, as I subsequently found from Mr. 
Huntley. I know several species of Gomphocarpus, but none bearing the 
specific name of ovata. 
From a portion of a newspaper lately received from a friend, I find that 
our butterfly, or a species very nearly allied to it, was represented, in two 
very fair characteristic cuts, in the ‘Australian Sketcher,” of July 12, 
1873, under the name of Danais archippus, on the authority of Professor 
McCoy of Melbourne, where it had been lately captured, who says it is 
found very commonly in America from Canada to Brazil; but only of late 
years observed in North Australia, Queensland, and the ihn parts of 
New South Wales, and more recently in Melbourne. 
I venture, however, to doubt our insect being identical with the Aus- 
tralian one, as therein represented and described; there seems a slight 
difference in its markings, and a still greater one in its colour. Those 
differences, however, may be only sexual ones. Should it hereafter prove, 
on full examination and comparison of specimens of both sexes, to be 
distinet from both the Australian and American insects, I trust it will 
have, and retain, the name of Danais nove-zealandie. 
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