6 SCARCE SWALLOW-TAIL. 



specimen which was captured by his brother, William Henry 

 Rudston Read, Esq., of Hayton and York, when at school at 

 Eton. He took it on the wing between Slough and Datchet, 

 Berkshire, before the month of July, about the year 1826. It 

 is a very dark individual. 



Again, the late Rev. F. W. Hope captured one in Shropshire 

 in 1822, and saw another on the wing. 



Mr, Plyiiiley found the larva near the spot where the Rev. 

 E. W. Hope took the perfect insect, but unfortunately the de- 

 vouring Ichneumon had made a lodgment, so that it came to 

 nothing. Mr. Plymley had the larva brought to him also more 

 than once, and the perfect insect in 1807, from the neigh- 

 bourhood of Netley, Shropshire. 



There was a specimen in Mr. Swainson's cabinet, Avhich he 

 told Donovan was taken by his brother-in-law, Captain Bray: 

 he believed in the Isle of Wight. 



Dr. Abbot took one in the month of May, in Bedfordshire. 

 This specimen is now in Mr. Dale's cabinet, 'in pcrpctuam rei 

 memoriam.' 



The butterfly appears in May and June. 



The caterpillar feeds on the apple, sloe, plum, peach, and 

 almond. 



The perfect insect measures, in different specimens, from 

 three inches to four inches across the wings. The ground 

 colour is very light cream yellow. The fore wings have two 

 black alternating streaks near the body, which meet an apparent 

 extension of them on the lower wings; next to these is a very 

 short one, extending only half-way into the wing; this is suc- 

 ceeded by another long one, which reaches quite across the 

 wing, met by a sort of shadow of it on the hind wing, and 

 this again by another short one, extending only one-third across 

 the wing. Again, there is another long one, reaching nearly 

 across the wing, and then lastly, another long one, which com- 

 pletely borders its outside, edged with a narrow yellow line, 

 of the ground colour of the wing. The hind whigs have a 

 black border following the crescent-shaped undulations of their 

 outside edge, and divided by four or five streaks of blue of 



