^: 



THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 285 



brought it to me alive in his tobacco-box : I need hardly 

 state the "weed" did not altogether improve the appearance 

 of the insect; but the man did his best. A fine female 

 specimen was taken on the 26th November, and is still 

 alive. The borders of both were grayish (or dingy) white. — 

 William H. Smith ; 5, Cedar Terrace^ Sevenoaks, Decern" 

 her 5, 1872. 



Vanessa Antiopa near Leeds. — Only a small party of these 

 interesting strangers appears to have visited this part of 

 Yorkshire. 1 have only heard of three specimens being 

 captured near Leeds this autumn : one of these was taken in 

 the centre of our smoky town, within a {e^ yards of the 

 Town Hall ; and another in the yard of a woollen-mill, trying 

 to extract food from some empty turpentine-casks. The sin- 

 gular character of the places, in which many of the specimens 

 of Antiopa have been taken, seems to give some support to 

 the opinion that they are chance visitors, and rather at a loss 

 how to get a living in a strange country, no British butterfly, 

 except a puzzle-headed white, venturing near such places as 

 Town Halls and mill-yards. Is it an ascertained fact that 

 there is a variety of Antiopa, in which the borders of the 

 wings are pure white upon emergence from the pupa, or is 

 the white of our specimens only faded yellow, like that of the 

 Antiopa of the Continent after hybernation ? I am told, on 

 the highest authority, that British Antiopas can always be 

 distinguished with certainty from foreign ones ; but my son 

 caught a number of specimens of this insect in the Tyrol last 

 May, which appear to me precisely like those which do duly 

 for British in our cabinets : the borders are pure white, and 

 just sufficiently battered to look " unmistakably British," and 

 "such as no foreigner would have thought it worth while to 

 capture." I hope some of the host of Antiopa have escaped 

 slaughter, and gone into winter-quarters, and that we shall 

 hear of them in the spring; and that those who are fortunate 

 enough to meet with females will not kill them hastily, but 

 endeavour to obtain eggs and rear the butterfly, that we may 

 learn whether a British-born Antiopa differs from a foreigner, 

 and in what particular: but, unfortunately, the blown-over 

 people would still say, — "If the child's a Briton, the father 

 vvas'nt." — Edtvin Birchall ; Kirkstall Grove, Leeds, Novem- 

 ber 24, 1872. 



