AND THEIR TRANSFORMATIONS. 13 
pulvilli. The larve are elongated, slightly pubescent, attenuated at each end. The chrysalis is gibbose, much 
bent, terminated like a spindle at each extremity, always attached by the tail and by a transverse girth across 
the middle. 
M. Boisduval rejects Dr. Leach’s name for this genus, Gonepteryx (misquoted by the former under the name 
Gonopteryx), because it is too much like Gonoptera, proposed long afterwards by Latreille for another genus of 
Lepidoptera; and because names ending in pfteriv have but little euphony, and ought only to be used in 
Ichthyology, where they are more prevalent. All these reasons appear to me insufficient: I have, therefore 
retained Dr. Leach’s name with a slight alteration, making it more in accordance with its Greek derivatives 
yore an angle, and arepov a wing. 

SPECIES 1.—GONIAPTERYX RHAMNI. THE BRIMSTONE BUTTERELY. 
Plate i. fig. 7—10. 
Synonymrs.— Papilio (Dan. Cand.) Rhamni, Linn. Syst. Nat. ii. Goniapteryx Rhamni, Westw. Introd. Geu. Syn. p. 87. 
p. 765. Donovan Brit. Ins. 5, pl. 145. Lewin Brit. Butt. pl. 31. Rhodocera Rhamni, Boisduval Hist. Nat. Lep. 1, p. 602. 
Albin Brit. Ins. pl. 3, fig. 3 e. h, Anteos Rhamni, Hubner, 
Gonepteryx Rhamni, Leach, Stephens, Curtis, Duncan, Brit. Butt. Ganoris Rhamni, Dalman. 
pl. 5, fig. 1. 
This butterfly varies in expanse from two inches to three inches and a half. The male has the upper side 
entirely sulphur-yellow, and the female greenish white, with an orange spot at the extremity of the discoidal cell 
of each wing, and some very minute ferruginous points at the place of union of the nerves with the margins of 
the wings. The under side of the wings is paler than the upper, especially in the males ; and the orange discoidal 
spot is replaced by a ferruginous dot, whitish in the centre, between which and the marginal ferruginous points 
is a row of fuscous spots. . 
Mr. Curtis has figured a variety of this insect captured near Peckham, with the upper wings variegated 
with orange, slightly asin G. Cleopatra; thus proving the correctness of the statement made to me by M. Boisduval, 
that he had reared G. Rhamni and Cleopatra from eggs deposited by the female of the former, the larve 
producing the latter offering no variation from those from which the latter were reared. (See also his Hist. Nat. 
Lepid. i. p. 602.) 
To no species of butterfly can we apply with greater effect, but with a little alteration, Mrs. Barbauld’s 
beautiful image of the origin of the snowdrop :— 
As if “ Flora’s breath, by some transforming power, 
Had changed” a flower into a butterfly. 
Sporting about in some flowery nook in the very first sunny days of February and March, this butterfly looks 
more like the petals of the primrose over which it hovers, floating on the breeze, than a living creature. 
These early specimens have survived the winter, and produce eggs from which a fresh brood of butterflies is 
produced in May, and another in the autumn, some of which last again survive the winter. 
The caterpillar is green, finely shagreened with black scale-like dots on the back, with a whitish or pale-green 
line on each side, the upper edge of which is shaded off into the general colour. It feeds on the buckthorn 
(Rhamnus catharticus), and the berry-bearing alder (Rhamnus frangulus), as well as on Rhamnus alaternus. 
The chrysalis is green, with several reddish dots ; it is very gibbous in the middle, and attenuated like the end of 
