4i7iB^' Queries and Answers, 



Entomologists Useful Compendium^ The Butterjly Collector's Fade Mecumy 

 Stephens's Illustrationsy &c. ; all of which speak of the insect as double- 

 brooded, and appearing in May, and again in August. Lewin [British 

 Papilios) says, " there are two broods in the summer : the first is out 

 on the wing the first week in May; the latter, the first week in July;" 

 and Donovan, in his British InsectSy observes, " there is one brood in 

 the month of June or July, and another the latter end of August ; " a 

 statement which is evidently erroneous. I see by the last Number of 

 your Magazine (p. 266.) that Mr. Dale took P. Argiolu^ at Cheddar, on 

 the 31st of July; and lastly, 1 have myself taken fresh bright specimens 

 in the Isle of Wight on the 29th of that month. It should seem, then, 

 either that the insect in one part of the country produces two broods in 

 the season, and in others only one ; which would be an anomalous and 

 extraordinary occurrence ; or else, that in one place it appears only in 

 the spring, and in another only in the summer, which would be little less 

 extraordinary : and it may be worth while to submit to a minute examin- 

 ation the vernal and aestival specimens, in order to see whether two distinct, 

 though closely allied, species may not have been confounded together, 

 and hitherto supposed to form but one. Can any practical entomologist 

 inform me, on his own authority, that he finds P. Argiolu^ in one and the 

 same district both in the spring and more advanced summer ? And has any 

 one carefully examined and compared together specimens captured at dif- 

 ferent seasons of the year and in distant parts of the country ? It is 

 somewhat extraordinary, again, that a butterfly, which makes its appearance 

 so early as the middle or end of April, or sometimes earlier (I have seen it 

 on the wing on the 28th of March), should produce but one brood during 

 the summer, as seems unquestionably to be the case with P. Argiolm in 

 this neighbourhood; while several allied species, which make their first 

 appearance later in the season, are known to produce two, as, e. g. P. Ado- 

 nic, I'carm, Pda^, A'lsu5, &c.; though, lam aware, we have an instance of 

 the like anomaly in the case of Pontia cardamines, which appears on the 

 wing in April and May, and is only single-brooded. — While on this sub- 

 ject, I would wish to ask also, whether Melitae'a Euphrosyne and Selene 

 (large and small pearl-bordered fritillaries) are really to be considered as 

 producing two broods in the year ? They are, I see, stated so to do by 

 Mr. Stephens, in his Illustrations ; and the latter of the two insects also by 

 the author of The Butter^?/ Collector's Vade-Mecum, In answer to some 

 enquiries on this point, Mr. Haworth, if my memory serves me, stated in a 

 letter, that all the examples of the second brood which he had seen, and 

 which were but few in number, varied from those of the first brood, by 

 being of a much paler colour. I suspect that these two species are not, in 

 reality, double-brooded, and that the few examples that have occurred later 

 in the summer than usual, are merely accidental, and exceptions from the 

 general rule. No other of our British fritillaries, I believe, is double- 

 brooded, with the exception, perhaps, of the rare Argjnni^ Lathonia 

 (queen of Spain fritillary) ; concerning the broods of which there seems 

 to be nearly the same kind of doubt and uncertainty as I have above stated 

 in the case of P. Argiolu^.* A. Lath6ni«, however, is so rare an insect 

 in this country, that there is but little opportunity for instituting such 



as appearing on the wing the middle of May. No notice is here taken of any 

 second brood ; and this omission leads me to conclude that the insect was 

 only known to the author at that time as a single-brooded one : and if so, 

 knowing, as I do, how accurate an observer Mr Haworth is, I may con- 

 clude also that P. Argiolu^, in other parts of the country as well as this, 

 appears on the wing only once in the year, and that in the spring. 



* See preface to Haworth's Lejndbjytera Britdnnicay p. 27, 28. ; and' 

 Stephens's Illustrations y Hiustelldtay vol. i. p. 37, 38. 



