LARGE TORTOISESHELL BUTTERFLY. 



51 



"White Beam, Sallow, Osiers, and most esi^ecially on Elm ; 

 but the infestation also occurs on Cherry, Pear, Apple, and 

 Quince. In France both the wild and the cultivated Cherry 

 are recorded as being the trees chiefly selected for attack, 

 sometimes to the serious extent of whole rows of trees being 

 stripped of their leaves. 



£ cfr. 



Vanessa polychlokos. — Large Tortoiseshell Butterfly ; cateriDillar and chry- 

 salis, natural size ; branched spine from caterpillar, magnified. 



This species w^as recorded rather more than fifty years ago 

 as being occasionally very abundant ; in Stainton's ' Manual ' 

 it is mentioned that it " occurs in the south, but not generally 

 common " ; but the only fully observed report of mischief 

 caused by its infestation sent me was in the summer of 1894 

 from Ossemsley Manor Farm, Lymington, Hants, by Mr. D. 

 D. Gibb, the first observation of attack being sent me on the 

 19th of June. Though only occasionally injurious to a serious 

 extent, the attack has such a power of destruction that it 

 appears desirable to draw attention to it. 



V. polycJdoros, or the Large Tortoiseshell Butterfly, is a 

 remarkably handsome insect, about two and a half inches 

 across in the spread of the fore wings, which are marked (as 

 figured above) on the upper side with black blotches or spots 

 on an orange red or tawny ground. Of these patches, two, 

 which are large and squarish, and a smaller one, are placed 

 along the fore edge of the fore wings, and four somewhat 

 smaller patches are placed towards the centre and hinder part 

 of the fore wings. The outer margin (along the tip of the 

 fore wings) is dark, with an irregular pale line running along 



E 2 



