4 THE GENERA AND SPECIES OF BRITISH BUTTERFLIES. 
delicate lemon yellow. It does not differ in its markings from the female (No. 8), but the 
ground colour of the latter is creamy white. On the under side, however, they are both alike, 
and though so much more delicately coloured than C. Hdusa on the upper surface, they are on 
the under side much more strongly tinted than that insect, though the tones are similar. 
The Caterpillar (No. 9) feeds on Medicago and other leguminous plants in the spring, and 
the perfect insect appears in the autumn. Though a very common insect in the neighbouring 
countries of the Continent, it is comparatively rare in England, except in certain seasons ; in 
1842, for instance, it was abundant, and it has been taken in some numbers during the present 
season. The following are the places in which it has been captured most frequently : Brighton, 
Ramsgate, Bristol, Dorchester, Epping, Lewes, Leicester, Manchester, Peterborough, York, and 
some places in Ireland. 
Tam indebted to my friend, Mr. ADAM Waite, of the British Museum, for the following 
note: 
“The two British species of Colias are very widely distributed. The C. Hyale has been 
taken in the Punjaub, and also on the slopes of the Himalaya, while both the species are found 
at Dhargeeling in N. India, and at Shanghai, in Northern China. Indeed there seems to he 
every reason to believe that both the species, like the ‘Painted Lady Butterfly,’ are all but 
cosmopolitan. The question, how some species are so generally distributed, and others so 
limited in their geographical range, is one of great interest. We may yet also be able to 
ascertain why some species are abundant every five or six years, like the species of Colias, 
and again become scarce. The moisture or dryness of the atmosphere, and the consequence of 
such meteorological changes, must affect all insects more or less, but some more particularly 
than others. A long period of frost kills many, and might lall a//, of the specimens of certain 
shell-fish in our seas, as has been well observed by the late HucH MILieEr, while others, closely 
allied, are quite unaffected. These others are found to extend far north, into regions subject to 
long periods of frost; while the delicate species belong specifically to temperate, or more 
southernly regions. From somewhat similar reasons, Colias Hdusa, and Hyale, and the ‘ Camber- 
well Beauty’ Butterfly (Vanessa Antiopa), may vary in their abundance. Other species of Colias 
are found very far north. The sobered gaiety of the Colias Boothii, of Curtis, cheered Sir 
James Clarke Ross and his comrades on the shores of Prince Regent’s Inlet ; while Sir John 
Richardson, Captain Collinson, and other Arctic voyagers, sent to the British Museum species 
of Colias, and other Butterflies, from localities where an Arctic winter rules for nearly three- 
quarters of the year. Where flowers bloom on the disappearance of the snow, there Bees and 
Butterflies are found, and none are more cheerful or gay than the species of Colias.~ At St. 
Martin’s Falls, Albany River, near Hudson’s Bay, Mr. GEORGE BARNSTON found one species to 
be very common.” 
