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with battledores has been discovered. Mr. Watson who was 
working on plumules, at the same time I was carrying on my 
investigations, has had opportunities of examining some hundreds 
of specimens of blues and browns among the Lycenidew, and 
has never met with battledores on any but the blues proper. We 
turn now to another characteristic scale, the ‘ tasseled,’’ described 
in the Micrographie Dictionary under the head Pontia, p. 571, 
thus :—‘ The form and structure of certain scales existing upon the 
under side of the male is curious.’”’ Here too, as we shall show, 
the writer has made a slight mistake; instead of under we should 
read upper, for it is there and there only we shall find scales 
similar to those figured in the Micrographie Dictionary. As may 
be supposed, having got an inkling from the blues respecting the 
situation of the battledores, I was not long before I searched the 
whites ; the first to come under examination was the large and 
small cabbage white, both of which gave, on the upper side, the 
characteristic scales called tasselled, or as some prefer plumules. 
These scales differ essentially from the battledores in shape, orna- 
mentation, markings, and pedicle; some are long and very slender 
throughout and gradually tapering to a point, others seem cut 
short, while others, comparatively broad at the basal end, sud- 
denly narrow, and terminate either as though cut short or fine off 
to a slender point, all, whatever be their comparative breadth and 
length, have a cup-like ball and socket termination to the pedicle. 
At the apex of each scale is a tasseled fringe of great beauty, from 
which circumstance they have heen called tasselled scales. All our 
English whites, with the orange tip, possess these peculiar scales, 
and if we turn to the great family of Pinide, which includes a vast 
number of continental and tropical forms, we shall find the males 
invariably possess a tasseled scale, either of the form of the English 
white and orange-tip, or a modification of these both as regards the 
terminal friuge and the pedicle. We have had opportunities of 
examining a good many, but Mr. Watson enumerated upwards of 
200 English and foreign Pinide examined by him, in which in 
every case the males and the males alone possessed the charac- 
teristic scale. As might be supposed, there are great diversities of 
size and form from what has been said respecting our English 
Pinida, which doubtless might be very useful in determining species. 
One curious confirmation of the value of these characteristic scales 
Mr. Watson drew my attention to in 1868, viz., that two hitherto 
believed different species of Pines turned out to be male and female 
of the same, the one having and the other being without the charac- 
teristic scales. They are arranged in rows behind the other scales 
as in the blues, but many being long and hair-like they appear only 
in situ. The next English family to be noticed is that named 
Hipparchia, the common meadow brown, H. janira, has a scale 
brush-like and tapering like the large white, but differing from it in 
