. The American entomologist. Entomology. 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 : U. WALSH Kock island, III. 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 speci
. The American entomologist. Entomology. 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 : U. WALSH Kock island, III. 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 r
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