36o 



much impressed by the fact that in the newly formed pupa 

 of Vanessa urticcB and io there exists a conspicuous dift'erence 

 hetween the colour of the sheaths for the wings, antennae, tongue, 

 and other imaginai organs, and that of the rings of the abdomen 

 and the tergites of the thorax. The former were almost colourless, 

 the latter had a complicated and vividly pigmented pattern. 



I should wish to make a few preliminary remarks on the 

 slides I am now going to show you. They are made from 

 photographs taken from the pupie themselves with a magnifying 

 lens, the photographs serving me as sketches on which I have re- 

 touched with ink those details that I wished to bring into 

 evidence, but always under proper control, the original objects 

 lying before me under the binocular microscope. 



Now, in connection with these drawings of pupae, I may 

 perhaps be allowed to draw your attention to the scantiness 

 •of figures relating to pupae and even to larvae of Lepidoptera. 

 Not being an entomologist myself, and not having at my dis- 

 posal large collections of insects, I had to recur to the existing 

 illustrated works, and I must say that, with the exception of 

 Prof. Poulton's excellent drawings of different morphological 

 details of chrysalids, I have not been able to find any sufficient 

 number of good figures that were of the least service to me. 

 It goes without saying that simple drawings in natural size, 

 Jiowever artistically or faithfully done, are not of the slightest use, 

 either for the study of structural details or for the colour- 

 pattern. 



Description of the Wing-sheath of V. urtic^ 

 (figs. 2 and 3). 



Three peculiarities attract our attention : 



I . The division of the outer part into two fields by a dark 

 bar running in a diagonal direction from the costa or top of the 

 middle cell to the obtuse hinder (or inner) angle of the wing. 

 The anterior border of this bar is sharply defined, and stands 

 in strong contrast to the anterior wing-field touching it, this 

 latter being of a much lighter tone of grey. Towards the side 

 of the anterior wing-border, and towards the base of the wing 

 (that is to say, in an antero-proximal direction), the sharp 

 anterior border of the bar is prolonged by a strip of dark 



