48 BRITISH BUTTERFLIES 
rather long, slender, and terminated by an abruptly-formed, short, somewhat cylindrical club, never flattened nor 
spoon-shaped. The body is very robust, and well-formed for sustaining the powerful flight of these insects. The 
wings are of large size, with the outer margin not only scalloped, but the anterior have the third and 
sometimes the last scallop but one, strongly angulated (the tip being, as it were, falcated), and the posterior have 
the middle of the outer margin also equally angulated. The discoidal cell in both pairs of wings is closed by an 
oblique vein. The fore legs are very short and rudimentary, so as to be quite unfitted for walking; they are 
composed of the ordinary parts, except that the tarsal portion is formed into a flat inarticulate plate which, as well 
as the tibia, is very densely clothed with hairs. The hind feet are long and strong, the tarsi of the ordinary size, 
five-jointed, and terminated by two curved ungues, on the outside of which is a pair of similarly formed membranous 
appendages bifid at the base, the under division being very short: between the ungues is a short pulvillus 
or cushion. * 
The caterpillars are long, cylindric, and clothed with numerous bristly spines, arranged in whorls round the 
body, each segment (except that immediately following the head) having a whorl of these spines. The head is 
generally entire, but in some of the species it is bituberculated. The pupa is considerably angulated, with the 
head bituberculated ; and it is adorned with silvery and golden hues. It is suspended by the tail. 
The genus is of considerable extent, but none of the exotic species exceed those of our own country in beauty ; 
indeed, it is impossible to find more exquisite contrasts of colour or delicacy in pencilling than is exhibited by 
some of our British species. The caterpillars are gregarious in some of the species, but those of the rest 
live solitarily ; the different species of Urtica afford nourishment to the caterpillars of several of them. In their 
perfect state, several of the species are Jong-lived, and are often to be seen in the autumn, especially delighting to 
frequent the dahlia, Michaelmas daisy, and other composite flowers. Ivy also, when in flower, is a particular 
favourite with them; and some are very fond of ripe fruit; V. Atalanta being even said to be sometimes 
very destructive to it, especially cherries, by extracting the juice, probably taking advantage of previous injuries 
occasioned by birds, wasps, and flies. This unusual propensity is occasioned by a very beautiful apparatus 
forming part of the spiral tongue (or maxille), which has recently been described by Mr. G. Newport in his 
valuable article “ Insect,” in the Cyclopedia of Anatomy and Physiology. This consists of a great number of 
minute papilla along the anterior and lateral margins of the spiral tongue, in the form of little, elongated, barrel- 
shaped bodies, terminated by three smaller papill arranged around their anterior extremity, with a fourth one a 
little larger than the others, placed in their centre. These papille are arranged in two rows along the lateral and 
anterior surface of each maxilla near its extremity for about one sixth of its whole length, there being seventy- 
four in each maxilla or half of the spiral tongue. Judging from their structure, and from the circumstance that 
they are always plunged deeply into any fluid when the insect is taking food, Mr. Newport suggests that they are 
probably organs of taste. They are largely developed in this genus, but in Pontia and Sphinx Ligustri they are 
scarcely perceptible. There are also some curious appendages arranged along the inner anterior margin of each 
maxilla in the shape of minute hooks, which when the proboscis is extended serve to unite the two halves 
together. In this genus they are described by Mr. Newport as faleated, and furnished with an additional tooth a 
* De Geer, Memoires, tom. i. p. 652, and tab. 20, fig. 12, describes and figures the hind tarsi of V. C. Album as furnished with four 
ungues of equal size and form ; and in the Crochard edition of the Régne Animal, Insectes, pl. 135, fig. 3 e, the lateral appendage of the ungues of 
V. To, Antiopa, Urtice, &c. is represented as forming only a simple and undivided piece; but in P, Atalanta these lateral appendages 
are distinctly bifid, the inner division being about half the length of the exterior. 
