1805.] 271 



The species to which the remaiiulev of these uotes refer, have 

 already been noted as occurring in Ireland. 



Thecla hetulce. 



This species, usually considered a scarce insect in the "British 

 islands, occurs abundantly in the west of Ireland. In August, 18G3, 

 I saw it in great numbers near Gralway, hovering over bramble blossoms, 

 and at Killarney sparingly last August. It is active on the wing, but 

 will only fly during sunshine, settling on the flowers when the sun is 

 obscured even by a passing cloud, and if the weather is at all cold or 

 wet, is so lethargic as to allow itself to be readily taken with the fingers. 

 One wet afternoon in Galway I obtained about sixty specimens, mostly 

 in fine condition, by this method. 



The curious onisciform larva? I have beaten in June from stunted 

 blackthorn bushes. 



JErehia Cassiope. 



The only Irish locality for this insect, about which I can speak 

 from my own knowledge, is Croagh-Patrick, near Westport ; in some 

 marshy hollows about halfway up the mountain, I took a fine series in 

 June, 1854; bat most likely it would also be found on the Nephin 

 range, and I have reason to believe it occurs on Slieve-Donard, near 

 Eoss Trevor. 



Anthocaris carilamines. 



Our ordinary " White Butterflies," by which I mean the genus 

 Pieris, are not generally common in Ireland, at least, in the south and 

 west you may collect for the length of a summer's day without seeing 

 a specimen ; and I have thought it possible that the Exodus of the Irish 

 peasantry has something to say to this : the character of the vegetation 

 has been changed over vast tracts of country — innumerable cabbage 

 gardens have been suppressed, and grazing farms substituted — over 

 wide districts once studded with villages and alive with beggars, no signs 

 of man are to be seen. An American gentleman with whom I travelled 

 to Killarney last summer constantly asked, as we rolled hour after hour 

 over the fertile but silent central pLiin traversed by the Great Southern 

 anil AVestern Tiailway, " AVhere are the people ? " Gone for ever; and 

 tlie dependent pigs, sparrows, cabbages, and Butterflies gone after them. 

 But it would seem, from what Mr. Bowles, the Secretary of the Ento- 

 mological Society of Canada, tells us of the appeai'ance of Pieris rupee 

 in Canada,* that the Butterflies are more loyal to the British connection 



'■ See Canadian Naturalist, new series, vol. I., No. 4, \). 25S, transfeiTCd to Zoologist for December, 

 1864, p. 9374. 



