AND THEIR TRANSFORMATIONS. 107 
Eager he looks, and soon to glad his eyes 
From the sweet bower by nature formed arise 
Bright troops of virgin moths and fresh-born butterflies— 
—He fears no bailiff ’s wrath, no baron’s blame, 
His is untax'd and undisputed game.” 
Indeed so strong is the “ fancy,” as it is termed, with some of these laborious collectors, that Ihave known 
some, who, after toiling at their weaving machines all the week, have started at ten o’clock on Saturday night, in 
order to arrive at Darenth and Birch Wood by daybreak, so as to collect the twilight-flying moths. Daniel 
Bydder, one of the most industrious of these collectors, and who was employed by Dr. Leach to collect for him 
in the New Forest (where he discovered Platypus cylindrus and Cicada anglica), was, I believe, the first of the 
Spitalfields collectors who attempted to arrange his insects scientifically, and now, following the example of the 
Entomological Society, they have formed themselves into a society of “ Practical Entomologists,’ and have a 
well-arranged collection, meeting at regular intervals, in order to communicate to each other the result of their 
captures. 
DESCRIPTION OF PLATE XXXIV. 
Insects.—Fig. 1. Polyommatus Argus, (the silver-studded blue Butterfly). 2. The female. 5. A common variety of the female. 4. 
Showing the under side. 5. The Caterpillar. 6. The Chrysalis. 
<a Fig. 7. Polyommatus Alexis (the common blue Butterfly). & The female. 9. Showing the underside. 10. A variety of 
the female. 11. An Hermaphrodite variety, having the wings of a female on one side and of a male on the other. 
12. The Caterpillar. 13. The Chrysalis. 
Prants.—Fig. 14. Cytisus Scoparius (the common brown). 
so Fig. 15. Medicago sativa (the cultivated lucerne). 
The insects on the present plates are from specimens in the British Museum, where are three other Hermaphrodite specimens of P. Alexis, 
but none of any of the other species. The caterpilJars are both from Godart. Hiibner has given a very different figure of the larva of Alexis. 
but as Godart minutely describes the rearing of several, I have preferred his figure. He describes the larva of P. Alexis as feeding upon the 
cultivated lucerne, and those of P. Argus upon the common broom, H. N. HH: 
SPECIES 8.—POLYOMMATUS ALEXIS. THE COMMON BLUE BUTTEREFLY. 
Plate xxxiv. fig. 7—12. 
Lycena Dorylas, Leach ; Samouelle ; but not of Hiibner. 
Synonymes.— Papilio Alexis, Wiener, Verzeichniss, p. 184; 
Papilio Hyacinthus, Lewin, Pap. 37, fig. 4, 5, 6; nec Fabricius 
Hiibner, Pap. pl 60, fig. 292. 
Polyommatus Alevis, Latreille ; Stephens ; Curtis; Wood, Ind. | Haworth (variety). 
Ent. pl. 3, fig. 69,m.and f. Duncan, Brit. Butt. title page. Polyommatus Labienus, Jermyn (variety). 
Papilio Icarus, Villars ; Haworth ; Lewin, Pap. pl. 38, fig. 4, 5,8, | Polyommatus Thestylis, Jermyn (variety). 
| Polyommatus Lacon, Jermyn (variety). 
Esper. Schmett. t. 32, fig. 4, m. : 
Papilio Argus, Wilks, pl. 119; Donovan, Brit. Ins. pl. 143, Polyommatus dubius Kirby MSS. (variety ). 
upper figures ; Harris Aurelian, pl. 39, fig. g—i. 
This, one of the most abundant of our native butterflies, varies in the expanse of its wings from less than an 


inch to nearly an inch and a half. The upper surface of the wings in the males is of a fine silky lilac-blue, the 
anterior margin of the fore wings being edged with white, the outer edge of all the wings with a slender dark line, 
and the fringe white. The body is clothed with long whitish blue silken hairs. The under side of the wings is also 
very similar in its marking to the two preceding species, but the ground colour of the wings is rather paler. There 
is an ocellated spot in the middle of the discoidal cell, with another, more indistinct, beneath it, which is sometimes 
connected with the innermost ocellus of the series between the extremity of the discoidal cell and the outer margin 
of the wing ; the base of the hind wings is strongly glossed with shining bluish-green atoms, and the sub-marginal 
