BUTTERFLIES IN MACEDONIA. 61 



September. Its flight is diiferent from podalirius, for, although 

 swift, it rarely rises more than a few feet from the ground. 



Thais polyxena. — An early species which always attracted 

 notice where it was found, but rather local, preferring, as a rule, 

 ravines in somewhat elevated places and I only found it where 

 there was a perennial stream handy. Its flight is short and jerky, 

 and it frequently settles with expanded wings on flowers or the 

 ground. The half dozen specimens I brought home are all variable 

 and neither agrees entirely with Kirby's figure, which shows no 

 red spots on the upper side of the fore wings. In each of mine 

 one is present on the costa just beyond the middle, one specimen 

 has another near the base, and a third has a rather large one in 

 the middle of the inner margin. The hollowed shape of the 

 hind wings is particularly noticeable beneath and the underside 

 of the wings is really very remarkable in appearance, the red 

 costal spots and orange-bordered nervures being very striking. 

 I found it on the wing from the middle of March till the end of May. 



Aporia cratcegi is an insect which does not vary much from 

 the typical form, but the specimens I brought back differ from 

 my British ones in having the triagular patches at the ends of 

 the nervures very slight or non-existent. One exceptionally pale 

 brown female has the disco-cellular nervules entirely without 

 scales. It was a common insect in the month of May, 

 and in certain places it simply swarmed and was far and away 

 the commonest white while it lasted. It was very pretty to watch 

 the males courting a female, who used to sit on a flower head, 

 fluttering in most perturbed-looking fashion, while two or three 

 males hovered round, jostling each other and making the most 

 strenuous efforts to secure the lady's favour. One frequently 

 saw them on dull days resting on clover flowers, of which they 

 seem inordinately fond, and they were more readily recognisable 

 by their curious hanging attitude than when in flight. On one 

 occasion I saw twenty-five of these insects congregated on a patch 

 of damp sand imbibing the moisture and one or two of them 

 were spotted with pink, presumably from some fluid which had 

 been splashed over them. Ova, laid on the upper side of the 

 leaf, larvaB and pupae were to be found on the sloe, which, in 

 the form of tiny shrubs, is abundant all over the country. 



Pieris hrassicce. — Not nearly so common in Macedonia as in 

 Britain, where the enormous amount of cabbage and allied plants 

 cultivated encourages it, as well as the following species. The 

 earliest note I have of its appearance in Macedonia is February 

 4th, 1918. I took two varieties of unusual form, one with the 

 apical spot very grey and faint, the other a male with the discal 

 spot beneath larger than in the type and united by a narrow 

 band ; the lower spot extends to the hind margin and near the 

 costa is a small double spot, the whole arrangement suggesting 

 a broken band across the wing. 



