SOIENTIFIO NOTES AND 0BSEEVATI0N8. 147 



prove of great interest during this discussion. As members will have 

 such and non-membei"S can buy Tlie Proceedings for a trifle from the 

 Secretary, I Avill only refer to one of these. It is by the late Mr. J. 

 Jenner Weir, and was read in connection with an exhibit made by that 

 gentleman of British and French specimens of Euchloii cardamines. It 

 is as follows : — " I have observed for some years that there is a differ- 

 ence between the Continental specimens of Euchloi- cardamines, so far as 

 I have been able to examine them, and those captured by myself in 

 Kent, Surrey, Sussex and Hampshire. I have a series of twenty-four 

 males of this insect captured in the above counties ; these have the 

 orange spot on the upper wings reaching but slightly beyond the dis- 

 coidal black spot. The inner edge curves outward, not extending be- 

 yond the first median nervure, thus leaving the hinder angle white. 

 This disposition of marking I find perfectly constant in those I have 

 captured. In the Continental specimens I find the orange sjjot extends 

 considerably beyond the discoidal spot, and is continued to the inner 

 edge of the wing, causing the hinder angle of the wing to be orange. 

 Lang, in his Bhopalocera Europae, figures this species with the hinder 

 angle orange, as though the drawing had been taken from a Continental 

 specimen, but the orange of the wing extends only in relation to the 

 discoidal spot to the extent usually seen in British specimens. Newman 

 in his British Butterflies, figures the species with the shading in lieu of 

 colour extending to the inner edge of the wing, as usual in Continental 

 but not British specimens. The distinction pointed out is very small, 

 but if it be constant our Euchloii cardamines is an insular variety easily 

 separable from Continental specimens of the species " (pp. 40-41). — 



J. W. TUTT. 



Apterous Females and Winter Emergence. — I have read with 

 interest Mr. Studd's comments {Eat. Record, v., p. 1)6) on the opinion 

 expressed by me at the City of London Entomological and Natural 

 History Society, and although the whole question is, I fear, more or 

 less a matter of mere speculation, yet I would venture to offer one or 

 two remarks in reply. First and foremost, I would refer Mr. Studd to 

 some thoughtful observations and suggestions by Mr. Tutt, which he 

 will find in that gentleman's " Secondary Sexual Characters of Lepi- 

 doptera" (Brit. Noct., HI., pp. viii.-ix.). It is there pointed out that 

 of species with apterous females, " there are two distinct groups which 

 require separate consideration." The first group includes the (relatively 

 few) summer examples, wherein the unusually large size of the body of 

 the female would render adequate wings a disadvantage and where, 

 indeed, the energy usually expended on wing develoi^ment may be 

 devoted to the production of additional fecundity. In the second 

 group (the winter examples) the scarcity, at that season of the year, of 

 appropriate hiding places about the trees on which the larvte feed ', 

 would, I think, have great influence upon the females ; and this would 

 tell more on the Geometrve than on Poecilocampa popnli or Asphalia 

 flavicornis (also tree-feeders) for at least two reasons: — \. The greater 

 general exposure of the Geometraj by day. 2. The greater in-oportional 

 wing area which they present when at rest. It is hard to see how a 

 fair-sized Geometer could protect itself, as A. flavicornis does, by clasj)- 

 ing small twigs, unless it were an exceptional species like Anisopteryx 

 aescularia. Lureniia multistrigaria has no need to resort to the trees, 

 and may be well protected among dry leaves. But what I had in my 



