1S77.1 0.5 



^^'heu they first appeared, every specimen was in the most perfect condition, but 

 after the first week, the females began to get worn, and very soon were reduced to a 

 pitiable state, the margins of the wings being actually worn off from their constant 

 fluttering about among the gi-ass and Lotus corniculatus at the road sides. I hardly 

 saw any in the clover fields. The males, from their habit of flying higher and clear 

 of the herbage, were in good order much longer. The last female I saw (a wretched 

 Helice) was on June 27th, but half-a-dozen males flew past me along the roads on 

 July 4th. The proportion of the sexes seen here was almost three males to one 

 female ; but of captures, the proportion would be very different, from the wildncss 

 and swift flight of the males. 



I know that these observations are hardly more than repetitions of what has 

 been observed and noticed by others, but I venture to record them, partly because 

 the appearance of a June brood of Colias Edusa is so unusual in this country, that 

 every item of intelligence should be recorded, and more especially, because a clue 

 seems to be afforded by it to an unexpected habit of the species in these islands. I 

 may point out that this county of Pembroke occupies a sort of isolated position, 

 being cut off by the mountainous portion of Wales, so that the immigration of insects 

 from the east is discouraged, while any continental specimens that might cross the 

 sea from the south would be intercepted by the more tempting and favourable dis- 

 tricts of Devon and Cornwall, and Ireland on the west is hardly likely to furnish 

 immigrants belonging to sun-loving species. We may therefore, I think, safely be 

 believed to breed our own Edusa. 



In the autumn of 1875, I saw only one or two specimens, and as many in June 

 of last year ; but, as I have already recorded, a tolerable sprinkling of specimens was 

 observed last autumn. Of these, all the females that I saw was fluttering about the 

 grassy road-sides among Lotus eo;'»ieM?a^i<s, apparently depositing eggs ; therefore, I 

 conclude that they had no intention of hibernating. They were out from August 

 2ith till October 7th, at which date the remaining specimens were much worn, and 

 I do not think that there was any sudden check, such as would cause the larger 

 portion of the brood of that season to hibernate in the pupa state. This early sum- 

 mer brood has been much more numerous, the specimens larger, and the females, 

 instead of the dark borders with small spots recorded last autumn, had the spots 

 large and strongly marked, sometimes remarkably so, and from their fine condition 

 did not look at all as though " just landed from France." 



From these circumstances, it seems possible that our knowledge of the economy 

 of Colias Edusa is incomplete, and that instead of hibernating, the females occupied 

 themselves in the autumn fine weather in laying eggs ; that the eggs soon hatched ; 

 and tliat the unusual mildness of the winter allowed the larva3 to feed up, assuming 

 the pupa state sometime in the winter or spring, ready to emerge on the first hot 

 day. There is unfortunately no direct proof of this, but the collateral evidence 

 already given — the apparent deposition of eggs in the autumn, the great increase in 

 numbers, and the fact that the summer brood consists of larger and better marked 

 specimens (from slower feeding of the larva;, of course) — points decidedly in this 

 direction, while the objections cannot be very serious, seeing that the food plants 

 were growing all the winter, and that even tender larvae can surely exist in a season 

 that has allowed the fuchsias to blossom until the spring, and has not killed even 

 the geraniums that were left in the ground. I even think that this hypothesis might 



