Insect Miscellanies, SQ5 



butterfly flying about, and settling in a very small potato 



Sirden, close to the public-house at St. Margaret's Bay, near 

 over. They were soon all scared away from the spot by 

 ineffectual attempts to capture them ; but on returning to the 

 place, within the space of about half an hour, I found the same 

 number of clouded yellows (doubtless, the individual examples 

 seen before), all collected again in the same potato garden, 

 where they were eventually all captured. On a subsequent 

 visit to St. Margaret's Bay, many specimens of the insect 

 were to be seen, within a short space of the same spot. The 

 specimens here alluded to were all males, which appear to 

 be far more numerous than the other sex. I may remark, 

 for the benefit of the less experienced entomologist, that the 

 lower figure represented at p. 13., and inscribed " pale 

 clouded butterfly (Colia* Hyak), female," is unquestionably 

 no other than the female of Colias Edus<z, the male of which 

 is figured in the same page. The two species have heretofore 

 been occasionally confounded, I think, by more than one 

 writer ; but both sexes of each are now so well known, that I 

 should hardly have expected such a blunder to have been 

 made in the present day, and hope to see it corrected in the 

 next edition. 



It is stated at p. 29. that — 



" Fleas and other parasitic insects never infest a person who is near 

 death ; and so frequently has this been observed, that it has become one 

 of the popular signs of approaching dissolution." 



I thought the fact had rather been the reverse of this. 

 Unless my memory greatly deceives me, I have more than 

 once seen it stated, in accounts of shipwrecks and disasters at 

 sea, e. g. when the crews have been cast upon some desolate 

 island, and exposed to extreme privations and distress, that 

 the sufferers in such cases have become infested with vermin. 

 Be this as it may, however, the appearance of vermin (lice) 

 upon a sick person is, at least in some parts of the country, 

 considered as a sign of approaching dissolution. Some years 

 ago, I recollect attending an aged and infirm woman, in hum- 

 ble life, during her last illness : on my going to the house one 

 day, the daughter, who had all along been in attendance, told 

 me that she felt convinced her mother would not survive long, 

 assigning, at the same time, as her reason for this opinion, 

 that she had lately discovered a louse upon her, a kind of 

 vermin to which she had not previously been subject. The 

 patient died shortly afterwards. 



Speaking of the acute scent of insects, Professor Rennie 

 remarks, p. 44;. : — 

 " We have observed that butterflies of all species, though far from 



