54 Transactions. 



appear. On examining its deu tliere it lay dead, its body 

 bent, and its little feet drawn together as it used to lie when 

 asleep. Sleep on, though there was no kindred to mourn ! 

 Nature, from whom thou hadst thy birth, kindly again re- 

 ceived thee, and has wrapped thee in her pall of oblivion ! 



COLIAS EDUSA IN 1877. By Robert Service. 



Read November 2d, 1877. 



There is nothing in the whole range of Natural History 

 of more interest than the study of the incessant changes 

 which are going on from year to year among the plants, 

 animals, and insects around us. Some species suddenly or 

 gradually disappear, others appear to take their place, or 

 those that are already present increase in an alarming 

 manner, spreading their devastating hosts with startling 

 rapidity over wide tracts of country. The Grasshopper 

 Plague and Colorado Beetle of America are familiar recent 

 instances of this most destructive increase. 



But it is not of a change fraught with desolation and 

 ruin of which I am about to tell you. Certainly the larvae 

 of Colias Ediisa cause, I understand, an appreciable amount 

 of damage on the Continent among clover and other Legu- 

 minous crops, but we may safely say this Butterfly will never 

 beconie a noxious insect in our uncertain climate. I am sure 

 most of you noted this golden beauty on the wing during the 

 past season, and the thought no doubt occurred to those who 

 do not make a special study of the insect tribes that it was 

 surely a Butterfly they had not before seen. And, so far as 

 this district is concerned, this supposition would be correct, 

 in the case of our younger members at least. 



This Butterfly has always been a favourite subject of 

 speculation among Entomologists, from its peculiar charac- 

 teristic of appearing only at intervals of many years in most 

 parts of England. In Scotland it has hitherto been of excessive 

 rarity. In some few districts of the extreme south of England 



