I06 THE BUTTERFLIES OF THE BRITISH ISLES. 



seems to be established, its proper place in the classification of 

 butterflies is still unfixed ; and even the question of its trivial or 

 specific name is not finally settled. According to Kirby, this 

 butterfly is Anosia menippe, Hiibner, and not the true Papilio 

 plexippus of Linnaeus, nor the P. archippus of Cramer. 

 American authors, however, consider it to be the Linnean 

 plexippus ■, and give menippe Hb. as a synonym. The species 

 is here retained in Danainae, but Holland places it in Euploeinae 

 and Skinner in the Family Lymnadidae. 



The Milkweed Butterfly {Anosia plexippus). 



The butterfly figured on Plate 120 is brownish-orange, with 

 black veins and margins on all the wings. White spots are 

 arranged in double rows on the black outer margin of each 

 wing, and there are seven other rather larger white spots on the 

 black apical patch of the fore wings. The male has a patch of 

 black scales, covering the scent pouch, close to vein 2 on the 

 hind wings. 



The egg is long, oval in shape, with over twenty low upright 

 ridges and many cross-lines ; is of a pale green colour ; and is 

 laid singly on the food-plant of the caterpillar (various kinds of 

 milkweed, especially the commonest kind, Asclepias cor?iuti) y 

 and usually upon the under surface of the upturned apical leaves 

 near the middle. The egg state lasts only about four days 

 (Scudder). The caterpillar has the head smooth and rounded, 

 yellow, conspicuously banded with black. Body cylindrical, 

 tapering a little in front, naked, but with two pairs of long and 

 very slender black thread-like filaments, one pair, the longer, on 

 the second thoracic, the other on the eighth abdominal segment. 

 The body is white, with numerous slender black and yellow, and 

 especially black, transverse stripes, repeated with considerable 

 regularity on each of the segments, so that there are nowhere 

 any broad patches of colour (Scudder). 



