306 - ARGYNNIS APHRODITE. 



and the two other animals, exactly as much higher than the 

 relation between these animals and the plant, as the relation 

 between the dragon-fly and the bat or the goat-sucker was, 

 when these two last-named animals were compared with the 

 dragon-fly. In other words, instead of saying, as Mr. Strick- 

 land makes me say, that " an affinity subsists between the bat 

 and dragon-fly, when compared with the DioncBa, and an 

 analogy when compared with the goat-sucker," I should say 

 that an affinity exists between the bat and dragon-fly, when 

 these two animals are compared with the vegetable, Dioncea, 

 and that an analogy exists between two such animals, when 

 the vertehrated bat is compared with the vertebrated goat- 

 sucker. Again, from the comparative nature of these re- 

 semblances, it appears to me that the relation which exists 

 between the goat-sucker and dragon-fly, when these two ani- 

 mals are compared with a Dioncea, is as close an affinity as 

 that which exists between the goat-sucker and the swallow, 

 when these two birds are compared with the bat. Independ- 

 ent of such comparison, the two birds are, of course, closer 

 in affinity than one of the birds and the bat. Whilst, as 

 Mr. Strickland justly remarks, the dragon-fly (independent of 

 its fly-catching habit), has no more affinity to the goat-sucker 

 than a beetle, a lobster, or any other annulose animal. 



Argynnis Aphrodite, a British species. — I was very much 

 gratified by the appearance of Arg. Aphrodite in the illus- 

 trations to the Magazine, as a few years ago, while out en- 

 tomologizing, I saw, in a brake of thorns near a wood (Coed 

 Gwynion), a short distance from the town, a beautiful Argyn- 

 nis. I stood observing it some time ; I was within four feet 

 of it, so that I had a good opportunity of observation. It 

 being a stranger to me, I searched Duncan's ' British Butter- 

 flies' for it, but in vain : Arg. Paphia was the nearest, but 

 my stranger had a row of crescent-shaped marks towards the 

 external edges of its wing ; Paphia is represented with 

 spots instead of crescents in the above work. From the other 

 large Argynnides it differed in nothaving a black border on the 

 outside of the crescents. At the time I concluded that it was 

 Arg. Paphia, thinking that the figures of the markings might 

 not be exactly delineated, as it oftentimes happens in cheap 

 works, that they cannot take the time necessary for perfectly 

 drawing and colouring the plates ; but if the Argynnides in 

 the above work are truly figured, it is a moral certainty in my 

 own mind, that the butterfly I saw was Arg. Aphrodite. — 

 James Bladon. — Pontypool, May 1840. 



