192 
DANAIDA. By H. Fruhstorfer. 
The fearlessness of the Danaids is pretty certainly the result of the immunity which they enjoy 
in consequence of their acrid juices, which protect them against the attacks of birds and reptiles. At the 
same time their body is hard and leathery and experiments with spiders and fowls have proved that these 
insects are never acceptable to them as food. In my experiments on Lombok, if ever a hen seized upon 
a Danaida or Fuploea by mistake, the butterflies were immediately thrown away again, and the beak even 
carefully wiped with evident signs of displeasure, in order to remove as quickly as possible the offensive 
smell or taste which the body had left behind. 
The egg of Danaids is large, soft, shaped like a cartridge (according to Moore like a sugar-loaf), 
more than half as high as broad, yellowish, sometimes pearly. All are strongly ribbed longitudinally with 
delicate horizontal lines, which vary in number and development and are difficult to count. The number 
of the longitudinal ribs differs also slightly even in the same species. The eggs of Hestia show a more 
hexagonal reticulation and the ribs run in zigzag, and the egg agrees on the whole more with that of the 
Euploeids (which we find repeated in the arrangement of spines in the larvae). 
Doherty also considered it worthy of note that the transverse lines in the Danaids s. str. are 
usually more numerous than the ribs, whilst in the Hestias and Euploeids they occur more sparsely. 
Respecting the larvae of the Danaids the reader is referred to the description in vol. I, p. 75; 
as food-plants various Asclepiadeae are preferred; often the butterflies are even limited by these in their 
distribution. 
The pupae are suspended, short, smooth, oval, constricted in the middle and commonly ornamented 
with brilliant gold and silver gloss; they are often traversed by brown stripes, AA'hicli in purely metallic 
pupae can also be artificially produced if the pupae are kept in the dark. 
As principal characters of the imagines may be mentioned: Delicate and weakly clubbed antennae, 
large eyes and club-shaped abdomen and the peculiarly reduced, thickened and spinous forelegs in the 
female. They are easily distinguished from the Nvmphalids and Satyrids by the submedian of the fore- 
wing being furcate at the base and from the few superficially similar Pierids by the reduced forelegs. 
Tufts of white scales on the head and thorax, which are present even in otherwise entirely black 
individuals, are also characteristic of the Danaids. 
The wings are mostly elongated, bag-shaped, rarely rounded; in the Euploeids differing in the sexes, 
but never pointed, as in Pierids or Papilionids. Tails are entirely absent, as in Pierids. 
The cells of both wings are closed, but that of the forewing proximally provided with two points, 
which probably represent rudiments of veins, and which are scarcely ever found in the Nvmphalids, but 
appear in many Satyrids. The clasping organs of the Danaids are remarkable for the aborted uncus and 
the unusually broad valve. The distal shape of the valve varies in Hestia from one local race to another, 
is in Danaida sensu stricto very diversified, but in the Euploeids extraordinarily constant, so that in the 
latter it cannot be employed as an aid in the determination of species. 
All the Danaids are extraordinarily tenacious of life, and in Lombok or Siam examples often flew 
away when I opened a paper after many days. They have also a long season of flight and one brood 
follows another continuously. They but rarely frequent wet places on the road, showing a preference for 
the smell of dried wood, and are hence occasionally found in the verandas of houses, and Martin ob¬ 
served them under covered bridges in Sumatra. All the Danaids are gregarious and their abundance is 
sometimes astonishing. On Ceylon and Lombok I sometimes sarv thousands in neglected village gardens 
overgrown with flowering weeds. 
Euploeids also sometimes take part in the migratory flights of Pierids. They are given to flying 
long distances, sailing one behind another, apparently without purpose. All the Danaids are attracted by 
flowering trees, round which they gambol in hundreds. 
The figures on pi. 71—86 have been drawn without exception from examples in the Fruhstorfer 
collection, Genf Florissant, in which are also contained the types of the new forms described here. 
1. Genus: I>anai(la Latr. 
(Danaida Latr. 1805, Danaus Latr. 1809, Danais Godt. 1819.) 
The species of this genus are distributed over the whole of the Indo-Australian Region, but de¬ 
crease rapidly beyond the Tropics, only a few species reaching the extreme limit of the region; these 
naturally belong to the commonest representatives oc the genus and in some cases even follow the spread 
of their food-plants by human agency. One species ( archippusi has been quite recently transported from 
North America over the Pacific Ocean by means of shipping and is constantly advancing further towards 
the west both on the continent and the islands. 
