MEMOIRS
OF THE
AMERICAN ASSOCIATION
FOR THE
ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE.
I.

SALEM, MASS.
F. W. PUTNAM, PERMANENT SECRETARY, A.A.A.S.
1875.

PRINTED AT THE SALEM PRESS, SALEM, MASS.

LETTER OF GIFT.

Portland, Aug. 22, 1873.

Mrs. Elizabeth Thompson of New York City, to-day elected a member, sympathizing with the purposes of our Association in the advancement of science, and seeing the new crop of young and industrious scientific investigators who are to form the future basis of this Association following in the footsteps of the veterans of science who founded it, and being aware of the financial difficulties which often beset the path of those noble men of science who labor more for truth than for profit’s sake, wishes to place at the disposal of the Permanent Secretary the sum of one thousand dollars, to be used according to the directions of the Standing Committee, for the promotion and publication of such original investigations by members of the Association as may be accepted by the said Standing Committee, to be published by means of this special donation.

[Signed]

P. H. Van der Weyde.

To the Standing Committee of the American
Association for the Advancement of Science.

REPORT
OF THE SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON THE THOMPSON FUND, HARTFORD MEETING,
AUGUST, 1874.

The Standing Committee of the Association at the Portland Meeting appointed the undersigned a Committee with full power to accept and print such papers as they might deem of sufficient importance to be published by the donation of Mrs. Thompson.

In accordance with the duties assigned to them, the Committee have accepted the Memoir by Mr. Scudder on Fossil Butterflies as the first paper to be published by the Thompson Fund, and while regretting that the unavoidable delay in engraving the plates prevents their having the gratification of presenting the work at the present Meeting, they believe that the Association and its liberal patron will accept the Memoir as one in every way worthy of the honor thus bestowed.

• Asa Gray,
• James Hall,
• Thomas Hill,
• P. H. Van der Weyde,
• J. L. LeConte,
• T. Sterry Hunt,
• F. W. Putnam,

Committee.

FOSSIL BUTTERFLIES.

BY
SAMUEL H. SCUDDER.

TO
COUNT GASTON DE SAPORTA,
OF AIX IN PROVENCE,

WHOSE EXTENDED MEMOIRS ON THE FLORA OF THE TERTIARIES OF SOUTHERN FRANCE FORM THE BASIS OF THE BIOLOGICAL CONCLUSIONS OF THIS ESSAY; AND WHOSE UNWONTED COURTESIES HAVE PERMITTED A CAREFUL EXAMINATION OF THE MOST IMPORTANT FOSSIL BUTTERFLIES,

THIS MEMOIR IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED BY
THE AUTHOR.

CONTENTS.

INTRODUCTORY.

The happy discovery in the Museum of Marseilles of a new fossil butterfly first drew my special attention to this group of extinct insects, and determined me to make, during my residence in Europe, a careful study of the original types of all that had been previously described. By the great courtesy of Count Saporta, Professor Heer, Dr. Reynès, Mr. Oustalet, Mr. Woodward, the Rev. Mr. Brodie, Mr. Charlesworth, and the authorities of the Jermyn street Museum, I was able to study not only all the originals of the Museums of Aix, Marseilles, Zurich, Paris, London, Cambridge and Warwick, but several new types, described here for the first time. As I was unable to visit Vienna, Mr. Brunner de Wattenwyl was good enough to procure for me new drawings, made under his immediate supervision, of the species from Radoboj, described by Heer and preserved in the museums of that city. So that I have either personally inspected all the fossils described within recent times as butterflies, or have procured new and excellent original drawings of them, with the exception of Heer’s Vanessa attavina (Sphinx atava Charp.), which I was unable to find, and two fragments of slight value, viz.: the hind wing referred by Heer to his Vanessa Pluto, and the portion of a hind wing, called Cyllonium Hewitsonianum by Westwood. In the hope of drawing attention to fossil butterflies, which have been hitherto so little studied, I have brought together in this connection all that has been published of this group of fossils, whether of text or illustration; presenting thus, within a small compass, a complete account of our knowledge of these insects, as a basis for future investigations.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.

DESCRIPTIVE.

NYMPHALES—PRÆTORES—OREADES.

Genus NEORINOPIS Butler.

In the shape of the wings (Pl. I, fig. 8) this genus closely resembles Neorina (Pl. II, fig. 13). The fore wings are arched and roundly produced at the apex, though not so strongly as in Neorina, rather as in Antirrhæa or Cœlites, the costal margin is regularly, but not, as in Neorina, very strongly arched, and the apex is well rounded; the outer border is sinuous and scarcely crenulate, the upper portion, above the middle of the subcosto-median interspace, very strongly convex and particularly prominent at the tip of the second inferior subcostal nervule; below, the margin is again convex, starting from the middle of the upper median interspace; at first (over one interspace) gently, afterward more fully, but still rather broadly, to the well rounded lower angle; the inner margin is slightly concave. The hind wings resemble those of Neorina far more than those of any other genus, but are long and proportionally rather more produced than in Neorina, with less crenation of the outer border, and a shorter and slenderer tail; the costal margin is strongly and abruptly convex next the base, but beyond this passes with a regular and gentle convexity to the outer angle, which is larger than a right angle and somewhat rounded off; above the tail the general trend of the outer border forms scarcely more than a right angle with the general course of the costal margin and is gently crenate; the tail, which lengthens the upper median nervule by about one-fourth, is about the width of an interspace at the base and tapers to a rounded point, at first rapidly, afterward slightly; the border is slightly angulated at the tip of the middle median nervule, and still more strongly at the tip of the lowest median nervule, causing in the latter a very broad angular projection, beyond which the margin slopes off and is rounded at the angle. The inner margin has a very broad and extensive basal projection, and the course of the internal nervure renders it probable that it was even more extensive than represented in the plate; it reaches more than half-way along the inner border, and at the broadest exceeds the cell in width; beyond it the inner margin has a nearly straight course, parallel and adjacent to the submedian nervure.

As to the neuration (Pl. I, fig. 9) this genus approaches more closely the genera Zophoessa (Pl. II, fig. 1), Neorina (Pl. II, fig. 8), Debis (Pl. II, fig. 10), and Lethe (Pl. II, fig. 6), than any others, although it differs from any of them more than they do among themselves. The most noticeable marks of distinction are these: in the fossil genus the first superior subcostal nervule of the fore wing is thrown off just at the extremity of the cell while the second and third are far beyond it; in the recent genera the first nervule is always emitted some distance before the tip of the cell and the second either at or before the extremity; in agreement with this, the cell is much shorter in Neorinopis than in the others, being but two-fifths the length of the wing, while in the others it is about one-half its length; in Neorinopis the nervule closing the cell of the fore wing unites with the median nervure at its last divarication, while in the others it strikes it a long distance beyond. In the hind wing the vein closing the cell strikes the median at its last divarication, as in Zophoessa, while in the others it meets the last branch of that vein at a slight distance from its origin.

In the fore wings the costal nervure terminates at a little distance beyond the middle of the costal border. The subcostal terminates, as in the recent genera mentioned, near the tip of the wing, and has four superior and two inferior branches; the four superior nervules and the costal nervure terminate at nearly equal distances apart on the costal border; the first superior nervule is emitted from the very tip of the upper border of the cell, at two-fifths the distance from the base to the apex of the wing, the second beyond the cell, but scarcely beyond the middle of the wing; the third at a less distance from the base of the second than that is from the first, and directly below a point midway between the tip of the costal nervure and that of the first superior subcostal nervule; the fourth near the extremity of the wing and but little before the tip of the third superior nervule, or at about two-thirds the distance from the base of the third superior subcostal nervule to the tip of the subcostal nervure; the first inferior subcostal nervule originates of course at the tip of the cell, and separates but narrowly from the main stem, from which it diverges very gradually as far as the base of the outer superior nervule, where the main stem approaches it again; the lowermost inferior subcostal nervule arises from the first inferior scarcely beyond its base, curves inward, downward and then outward before taking a course parallel to the nervule above, from which it is separated at its base by twice the distance that the former is there distant from the subcostal nervure; the vein closing the cell can scarcely be called a vein, but rather a break in the membrane such as is often seen in recent butterflies, and is indicated in the fossil by a curving granulated streak; it arises from the final curve of the lowermost inferior subcostal nervule opposite and directly below its origin; it passes thence in a slightly curved line, opening outward, to the very base of the upper branch of the median nervure. The median nervure runs in a straight line as far as its first divarication, which is a little beyond the middle of the cell; thence it is bent parallel to the subcostal nervure and exactly at the lower tip of the cell forks, the branches parting but gradually from each other, the upper gently curved, the lower nearly straight. The submedian nervure is parallel to the lowest median nervule, as in Neorina, etc. None of the veins are swollen at the base. The cell is three and a half times longer than broad.

In the hind wing the neuration is almost precisely that of Neorina Lowii (Pl. II, fig. 8). The costal and subcostal veins are confluent for a short distance, when the costal parts from its neighbor at nearly right angles and immediately thereafter sends up the basal shoot, which, after passing in a straight line half way toward the basal angle of the costal margin, curves slightly outward and fades away; the costal nervure, on approaching the border, curves outward and meets the border near the middle of its outer two-thirds; the subcostal breaks into three branches, exactly as in Zophoessa. The median nervure and its middle branch form a continuous, almost exactly straight line, from which the lowermost branch parts opposite the union of the vein closing the cell with the lowest subcostal nervule; and the uppermost at exactly the tip of the cell, or as far beyond the origin of the lowest nervule as the upper limit of the vein closing the cell is from the base of the upper subcostal nervule; the vein closing the cell is a very weak one and originates on the lowest subcostal nervule, as far from the second divarication of the subcostal nervure as that is from the first, and passes in a gentle curve, opening outward, to the second divarication of the median nervure. The submedian and internal nervures are united for a short distance beyond the base of the cell; the submedian passes with a gentle regular curve to the outer border, at the lower outer angle; the internal parts from this with an opposing curve and terminates somewhere below the middle of the inner flap of the wing, probably approaching again the submedian nervure near its extremity. None of the veins are swollen at the base. The cell is two and three-quarters times longer than broad.

In the disposition of its markings (Pl. I, fig. 8) this genus does not seem to show any strong affinity with any living butterflies, although it has some features in common with the genera already referred to (Pl. II, figs. 3, 9, 11, 13, 14). The base of the wing is dark, followed by paler spots and bands, differing greatly in the front and hind wings, followed again by a belt of dusky scales, which separates from the rest of the wing a paler submarginal band, enclosing roundish, interspaceal, often pupillated spots of varying size, and whose outer limits are at least an interspace’s distance from the outer border; the latter is margined, on the hind wings, with alternating darker and lighter lines. The middle portions of the two wings differ; the hind wings have simply a broad pale field, gradually merging on either side into the darker parts and varied by a cloudy, wavy, narrow, transverse belt near the middle; the fore wing, on the other hand, is marked by two large diagonal light patches, whose interior edges are well defined, but whose exterior are powdered at their confluence with the darker parts; one of these patches crosses the subcostal interspaces at a little distance beyond the cell, and reaches from the subcostal to the median nervure; the other crosses the middle of the outer half of the cell and covers a great part of the basal half of the lower median interspace; while a third roundish patch, united with it, occurs near the middle of the medio-submedian interspace. The two diagonal patches have their inner distinct edges nearly parallel and straight, following lines which run at nearly right angles to the costal margin; in this respect they agree with the diagonal disposition of markings upon the upper and under surface of some species of Zophoessa (Pl. II, figs. 3, 11) and Lethe (Pl. II, fig. 9), while the nature of the broad patches themselves may best be compared to such masses of color as we see in Neorina Lowii (Pl. II, fig. 13) and some other species; the marginal markings of the hind wings and the submarginal spots are common to very many Oreades, but the nature and disposition of those of Neorinopis and the disparity of their character on the two wings are best seen on a comparison with the types we have already alluded to, and which are represented on the plates. The small round pale spots accompanying larger dark ones on the fore wing may be seen in Neorina Lowii, though the relation of the two is different from what we see in Neorinopis, while the greater importance of the ocellus in the lower median interspace of the hind wings finds an exaggerated counterpart in Neorina Lowii. In general, the design of the fore wings approaches that of Neorina Lowii more nearly than that of the upper surface of any other butterfly I have seen, although there is a distant resemblance to the markings of Antirrhæa and Anchiphlebia, as Butler has remarked, as well as toward certain species of Zophoessa. The markings of the upper and under surface of butterflies have nearly always some and often a close relation to each other, and therefore we may reasonably look at the under surface of living insects to find the nearest counterpart to our fossil; in this respect the under surface of Lethe Dyrta (Pl. II, fig. 9) may well be studied, where in a lighter submarginal band we find a series of spots, in the principal interspaces, far from the border; these are ocellated instead of double as in Neorinopis; there are two large patches of pale color in the upper half of the wing as in Neorinopis, but the inner is much obscured by a dark bar crossing the middle; and the outer instead of the inner patch is connected with the lighter parts of the lower half of the wing, and is separated from the parts within by a long line whose general course is at right angles to the costal border; in the markings of the hind wings it is by no means unlike Zophoessa Sura (Pl. II, fig. 3), and resembles less conspicuously Debis Sinorix (Pl. II, fig. 14), with which also it agrees admirably in the form and neuration of the wing; in the shape of the tail particularly, and in the size of the insect also, Neorinopis agrees better with Debis Sinorix than with any butterfly I have been able to examine. In neuration and in markings, although not at all in the form of the wings, this fossil shows no distant alliance to our own Enodia Portlandia.

The other parts of the body are not sufficiently preserved to admit of their use in generic description, if we except the hind legs; these are slender, the tarsi (which are barely shorter than the thorax) being of the same length as the tibiæ and a very little longer than the femora.

NEORINOPIS SEPULTA (Boisduval) Butler.

Plate I, figs. 8-17.