59 BRITISH BUTTERFLIES 
spots are either more or less obliterated, or are enlarged, so as to become confluent. A fine individual of the 
latter kind is figured by the Rev. W. T. Bree in the New Series of the Magazine of Nat. Hist. Suppl. pl. 15; and 
our fig. 13, in which the second and third costal black bars are united, whilst the two round discoidal spots 
are wanting, the hind wings are uniformly obscure, 
The caterpillars of this species are found on the common nettle in the beginning of June and the middle of 
August ; they are gregarious in the early period of their lives, and are dusky-coloured, varied with green and 
brown, with paler lines down the back and sides, and with the head black, the body beset with strong branched 
black spines. The chrysalis is brownish, with golden spots on the neck, and sometimes entirely golden. This 
golden appearance, which suggested to the early naturalists the names of Chrysalis from the Greek, and Aurelia 
from the Latin names for gold, and which is so conspicuous in the pupz of this and the other species of this genus, 
is owing simply to the shining white membrane immediately below the outer skin, which being of a trans- 
parent yellow, gives a golden tinge to the former. Its appearance, however, was seized upon by the alchemists 
as a natural argument in favour of the transmutation of metals ; nor was it until the researches of Réaumur in 
France, and of Ray and Lister in England, that its real nature was discovered, the last-named author having 
imitated it by putting a small piece of black gall in a strong decoction of nettles ; this produces a scum, which, 
when left on cap-paper, will exquisitely gild it, without the application of the real metal. Réaumur also 
mentions that, for producing this appearance, it is essential that the inner membrane of the chrysalis should be 
moist ; whence may be explained the disappearance of the gilding so soon as the fluids within the body 
have been absorbed by the formation of the limbs of the butterfly (British Cyclop., art. Aurelia). 
The perfect insect is very abundant, and appears in the beginning of July and September, often surviving 
the winter, and coming abroad the first warm days, having been noticed in the Isle of Wight even so early as the 
8th of January. It is distributed all over the kingdom, extending to the northern extremity of Scotland, in which 
country it is known under the name of the Devil’s or Witch’s Butterfly! In the south of Europe it continues on 
the wing through the winter ; and according to Mr. Brown (Mag. Nat. Hist. No. 9), it would appear that none 
of the specimens of this species hybernate in Switzerland and re-appear in the spring. 
Mr. Stephens possesses a most remarkable specimen of this species, having five wings, the fifth of small size, 
being implanted on the dise of one of the hind wings, which it resembles in its markings. It was captured by 
Mr. Doubleday near Epping. 
This species afforded the great anatomist Swammerdam materials for a most elaborate memoir on the structure 
of the larva, and the mode of its transformation to the pupa state. THis figures occupy two folio plates (34 and 
35) in his great work on insects. 
DESCRIPTION OF PLATE XIV. 
Insects.—Fig. 1. Vanessa To (the Peacock Butterfly). 2. Showing the under side. 3. The Caterpillar. 4. The Chrysalis. 
” Fig. 5. Vanessa Antiopa (the Camberwell Beauty). 6. The Caterpillar. 
Prants.—Fig. 8. Salix Russelliana (the Bedford Willow). 9. 10. Urtica dioica (the Stinging Nettle). 
The little Cynthia Hamsteadensis, of Petiver, appears out of its place in this plate ; but the next (where it would not have appeared much 
less so) was too crowded to admit it, and I did not like to omit it altogether here, particularly as Mr. Stephens has inserted it in his work after 
C. Cardui. It, however, has so much the air of a species or variety of Hipparchia, that it would have looked much more at home in one of the 
plates illustrative of that genus. I have shown the dingy under side of V. Io, as affording a singular contrast to the gay colouring of the upper 
surface, but that of V. AntiopaI considered scarcely worthy of a figure ; it is very similar to that of V. Io, with the exception that its pale and dark 
borders are both there repeated, which renders it less singular. H. N. H. 
