PIERID/E. 29 



black. Female having no indication of tlie orange blotch, 

 but with the central black spot and apical dark markings 

 much larger, the latter often spotted with wliite. Under side 

 of the fore wings in both sexes like the upper, except that the 

 costa and apex are greenish, hind wings beautifully mossed 

 or marbled with yellowish-green. 



Variation is mainly in tlie size of the central spot of the 

 fore wings, and its position with regard to the orange blotch, 

 in the colour of the latter, which is occasionally yellow, in 

 suffusion of blackish from the apex over the orange blotcli, 

 and, in the female, in the absence or presence of white spots 

 in the apical dark blotch. Mr. Briggs has a male witli no 

 dark central spot, Mr. Webb one with no dark apex, and the 

 markings of the hind wings underneath yellow, and another 

 with the ground colour above pale yellow, greenish below. 

 Mr. Bond's collection has one in which the hind wings above 

 are sprinkled with black dots, ]\Ir. Doubleday's a female with 

 yellow costa, and Mr. Adkin has one with a black V mark on 

 the middle of the under side of the fore wings. One from Sligo 

 is yellowish, with the black spot abnormally large, and several 

 of the larger collections contain gynandromorphous specimens, 

 in some of which, or in females, streaks of orange colour 

 occur in erratic fashion. There is also a recurrent small 

 variety, \ inch less in expanse in both sexes, and in Surrey 

 this variety occurred year after year, a day or two earlier in 

 the spring than the ordinary form, with great regularity. It 

 is not certain, however, that this is the rule. 



This common species is one of our loveliest butterflies, 

 flying in May and June, though it has been found on the 

 wing as early as April 17 in Surrey. Single-brooded, but 

 in one instance, in 1886, several specimens of a second 

 emergence were seen and captured in the neighbourhood of 

 Maidenhead in the middle of September, and one was taken 

 in August of that year in Sussex. 



Larva downy, bluish-green, yellowish-green beneath, and 

 having a white spiracular line. On Cardaminc pratcnsia, Simqjis 



