Fossil Butterflies: Memoirs of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, I.Scudder, Samuel Hubbard
Science
Fossil Butterflies: Memoirs of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, I.
Scudder, Samuel Hubbard
Butterflies, Fossil
All that can be said, therefore, must be drawn from the illustrations and
remarks of Professor Heer. These seem to me to leave no doubt that the
insect must be placed in Eugonia, and that it was a little larger than
the European vau-album or our own j-album. A comparison of the neuration
of _Eugonia j-album_ (Pl. I, fig. 4) with that of Heer’s figures of the
fossil (reproduced on Pl. I, figs. 1, 7) shows that the last divarication
of the subcostal nervure of the fore wing, and the points of termination
of the last two superior nervules and of the subcostal nervure itself
are essentially the same in both; while the position of all the markings
on the fossil, allowing for its natural defects, are quite the same in
position, direction and intensity, as in _E. j-album_ (Pl. I, fig. 6).
The same may be said of the form of the wing, as far as it can be seen,
but as this is true only of the costal margin, and the merest fragment of
the outer border, it cannot be considered to have much weight in itself;
still, taken in connection with all the other features, which agree
almost wholly with those of Eugonia, and but partially with its near ally
Vanessa, to which Heer compares it, we must refer the fossil to Eugonia,
at least until a new examination of the fossil shall give us further
facts as a basis for an opinion. This is the position dubiously assigned
to it by Kirby, in his Synonymic Catalogue.
Tertiaries of Radoboj, Croatia.
PAPILIONIDÆ—DANAI—FUGACIA.
MYLOTHRITES SCUDDER.
Of the form of the fore wing (Pl. II, figs. 7, 17) we can say but little,
from the imperfect nature of the fossil; the costal margin, however,
is very regularly and rather strongly arched, and the direction of the
middle portion of the outer border (probably at a right angle, or at a
little less than a right angle, with the apical portion of the costal
margin, and but slightly convex) leads us to presume that the apex was
rather pointed, though not falciform.
The neuration of the same wing (Pl. II, fig. 7) is very similar to that
of Mylothris.[V] The costal nervure terminates at about five-sevenths the
distance from the base of the costal margin to its tip; the subcostal
nervure emits two branches before the cell, the second probably close to
the apex of the cell, the limits of which are not given in the drawing
prepared for me, but which could probably be made out by a sufficiently
careful examination of the original; a third superior nervule is emitted
from the subcostal nervure at less than half the distance from the origin
of the second to the outer border, and the emission of the inferior
nervule, if it could be traced, would mark the termination of the cell;
the median nervure is of course three-branched and scarcely curves upward
at all to meet the subcostal.
The design of the upper surface of the fore wing (Pl. II, fig. 17) is
simple, consisting only of a broad marginal pale band on a dark ground,
enclosing small dark spots in the middle of the interspaces.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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