204 A CATALOGUE OF THE LEPIDOPTERA OF 



45, ;9^. 89.— Hub. Pap. 79, m.— Wood Ind. Ent t 1, 

 / 31. Vauessa Antiope, Curtis B. E. ii. t 96. V. Aiiti- 

 opa, Steph. Illust. Ilaust. i. 45. — Staint. Man. i. 38. 

 Larva. Hiih. Gesch. Pap. I. Nymph. C. a. 2. — Dup. Icon. 

 i. pi. 10, / 35. — Don. Brit. Ins. ut sup. — Curtis B. E. ut 

 sup. 

 One of the rarest and most striking of our British Butter- 

 flies, known to the old London Aurelians as the " Camherwell 

 Beauty,^'' from the locality in whicli it used to occur. Like 

 Cynthia Cardui it would seem to appear occasionally, in great 

 numbers, in particular localities. Our fellow member, William 

 Backhouse, Esq., informed me many years ago that, about the 

 year 1820, he saw vast numbers of it strewing the sea-shore at 

 Seaton Carew, both in a dead and living state; and his cabinet 

 contains a specimen he then procured. Now, it is surely more 

 reasonable to suppose that these specimens had been blown from 

 the land, than that they had crossed a sea at 'least 300 miles 

 wide; and the one above alluded to, whicli Mr. B. has kindly 

 shown me, confirms me in that opinion, as it has the pale whitish 

 margin to the upper side of the wings, so characteristic of our 

 British specimens, whicli is replaced by yellow in nearly all 

 the Continental and American specimens. The insect is very 

 abundant throughout Europe, and such as have hybernated, 

 alone seem to acquire the pale border whicli our summer 

 specimens possess. About twenty years ago, I inquired of a 

 very intelligent friend, who had passed his early life at Stockton, 

 whether he had any recollection of having seen such a butterfly 

 in that vicinity, and his reply was that he knew it well, and 

 that it went by the name of " The White Petticoats ! " No one 

 who knows the insect can question the appropriateness of the 

 name, or its application to this species. Stephens, I. c, says, 

 " Mr. Backhouse informs me that it has been found repeatedly near 

 Seaton, Durham, and often floating on the River Tees." 



It would seem, therefore, that the south-eastern corner of 

 Durliam has been rich in this fine insect; and Mr. Hogg kindly 

 sends me his notes of two specimens from the same locality :* — 



* Also communicated by him at tlic time, to tlie London Entomological Societj-, and 

 printc(l in its Transactions, vol. iv., p. 82 ; and in the Anuals of Nat. Hist., vol. xii., p. 36.3. 



