HARDWICKE'S SCI ENCE-GOSSJP. 



149 



These few facts adduced will be sufficient to show 

 that the spots on a butterfly's wing may, under 

 certain lugubrious conditions of climate, resolve them- 

 selves into lines, the stars on the scutcheon becoming 

 stripes ; and if we now look southward towards the 

 little island of Corsica, basking in an increase of 

 ■sunlight off the southern coasts of Europe, we shall 

 witness in its insular variety of the tortoiseshell 

 (Ichnusa) the converse of this phenomenon, and find 

 that the two small discal wing-spots may entirely 

 vanish, so as to confer a new appearance on the 

 butterfly. Dr. Standinger, the greatest authority on 

 such matters, tells us the caterpillars of this variety 

 are likewise dark, and he adduces the singular coinci- 

 dence, that in the year 1859, when several nests of 

 unusually dark caterpillars appeared in the vicinity 

 of Dresden, a local collector took a corresponding 

 aberration of the small tortoiseshell without the two 

 ■discal wing-spots more freely than heretofore. This 



the black setting inlaid with sapphire, we shall have 

 a fundamental form with four black stripes on the 

 upper wing (fig. 88-4). Although it would be pre- 

 mature to affirm whether such a Vanessa, as is here 

 foreshadowed, does, ever did, or ever can, embody 

 itself as an entity, it is, nevertheless, certain that 

 the pattern (like the first few strokes of an accom- 

 plished draughtsman) underlies the superficial mosaic 

 which distinguishes our indigenous species, and that 

 it rules and influences their variation to such an extent 

 that aberrations from time to time start up on whose 

 alar surface we fancy we see visibly depicted as sudden 

 a metamorphosis, and as wild, as any portrayed in 

 mythological lore. It is thus we find figured in New- 

 man's "Entomologist" an immaculate Camberwell 

 beauty (K, antiopa)) with certain possible rudiments 

 of the false ocellus on the fore wing of the peacock 

 butterfly ( V. Id), and conversely a peacock retaining 

 its row of purple spots along the margin of the front 



Fig. 89. — CoropJuinn crassicorne X 25. 



•aberration, it may be remarked, has been also noticed 

 in Switzerland, France, Belgium, and even in 

 England, and it really remains a subtle question 

 whether it be indeed differentiated from its Corsican 

 brother.* 



Supplementing this central band in examples of 

 the small tortoiseshell, there may often be observed 

 a few irrorations, proceeding from the costal blotch 

 next in order towards the wing tip in the direction 

 of the two discal spots, that afford indications of a 

 second band parted from the outer by an obsolete 

 yellow ribbon, most marked at the inner margin ; 

 and, although rarely noticeable on the upper surface, 

 if we turn over the wing we shall observe the third 

 blotch similarly produced to the hind margin of the 

 ^v/ing, so that if we add to these three virtual bands 



* " Soc. Ent. de Belgique, 1873," p. 409. Two forms of 

 this aberration are figured by Newman in " British Butterflies," 

 ■the second more melanic type will also be found coloured in 

 Herrich SchaflTcr (" Syst. Bear, der Schmet. von Europa "). 



wings, but having the flaunting eyes that arise out 

 of them obsolete ; while in the Transactions of the 

 French Entomological Society, there may be seen 

 a figure of a dark tortoiseshell of a madder brown 

 tint with a well-defined embroidering to the wing 

 margins, recalling the Camberwell beauty, to which 

 is superadded a quasi ocellus on the fore wing. Pea- 

 cock butterflies likewise occur that show black spots, 

 faint bands, and supplemental marginal eye specks 

 appearing on the hind wing in a line with the great 

 purple eyes. 



(To he continiicJ.) 



Queen Wasps. — These insects are very numerous 

 in this locality. This month of April I have killed 

 already fourteen and expect to kill many more, as 

 I have seen numbers flying about. Have any of the 

 readers of Science-Gossip noticed the same fact ? 

 — S. A. Brenan, Alla7i, Rock, co. Tyrone. 



