220 [March, 



one to twelve, but they were far more easy to catch, as they flew among 

 the branches of their food-plant, searching for a suitable place to 

 deposit their eggs. Strange to say, hardly a specimen captured was 

 perfect, although in many instances they seemed to be fresh from the 

 chrysalis, yet had large pieces chipped in most cases from their hind- 

 wings. This was caused by the males, who, when seeking their mates, 

 were so numerous, that they were often to be seen in a throng fluttering 

 round a single female, and, in their eager struggles, urging her amongst 

 the low and thorny brushwood, where her wings soon became damaged. 



The eggs were laid on the under-side of the terminal shoots of 

 Cassia Candolleana, Vog. — called by the Chilians the " Flor del Mayo," 

 — upon which shrub the larvae appear exclusively to feed. When 

 young they live between united leaves, but as soon as they become 

 half-grown, they emerge and feed exposed on the upper surface of the 

 leaves, continuing to do so until full-fed. They can then be seen 

 without much difficulty, stretched at full length along the centre of 

 the leaf, with their claspers firmly fixed to a silken pad. They are not 

 to be dislodged with a beating-stick. The mature larva is of a dark 

 pea-green colour, thickly irrorated with slightly raised black dots, 

 which give it a somewhat rough shagreened appearance ; a broad, 

 granulated, lemon-yellow and orange stripe runs just above the 

 spiracles, which are black ; on each segment above this yellow stripe 

 are four small, square-shaped black spots ; head, pro-legs, claspers, and 

 entire under surface pale pea-green. The whole larva bears a strong 

 resemblance to that of Gonepteryx rhamni. I was unable to find a 

 chrysalis among the branches of the Cassia, but in confinement, the 

 larva, when full-grown, attached itself to a silken pad, encircled itself 

 with a thread, and, in this position, changed to a bright beautiful 

 green and much-angulated chrysalis, with pale yellow dorsal and 

 spiracular lines, and enormously developed wing-cases. The change 

 from larva to chrysalis was extremely rapid. A full-grown larva 

 which was found on the afternoon of 4th January attached itself the 

 same evening, and, upon looking at it at four o'clock the following 

 afternoon, it had, in that short time, become a chrysalis, which pro- 

 duced a male butterfly on the 21st of the same month, so that the 

 whole period from larva to butterfly was just seventeen days. 



The perfect insects differ slightly from the descriptions and figures 

 in Butler's monograph, but, probably, this difference is merely local. 



H. M. S. " Espiegle," Madeira : 

 IZth December, 1881. 



