FRITH, LARIES. 



59 



a row of blue spots just within this hand ; the 

 fore wings have two whitish spots on the 

 costal margin rather beyond the middle. 



LIFE HISTORY. The EGGS are laid in the 

 spring, after the female has hybernated, on 

 the nettle (Urtica dioica), the birch (Betula 

 alba), and far more commonly on the white 

 willow (Salix alba). The CATERPILLARS are 

 covered with long branched spines: the head 

 is black ; the body also black, with a medio- 

 dorsal blotch on each segment from the fifth 

 to the eleventh, both inclusive, of a brick-dust 

 red colour. The CHRYSALIDS are angulated, 

 eared, and suspended by the tail. Hubners 

 and other figures. 



Obs. I have no knowledge of the earlier 

 states of this butterfly except from books ; it 

 is a most abundant continental species. 



TIME OF APPEARANCE. Early spring and 

 late autumn. I believe that hybernated speci- 

 mens are much more common thai* is gene- 

 rally supposed. The caterpillar and chrysalis 

 states must of necessity occur betwe-'ii the 

 spring and autumn flights, but I have no 

 practical knowledge of this. 



LOCALITIES.- I have very great difficulty in 

 defining localities f >r this insect: on the con- 

 tinents of Europe and North America it is 

 abundant, but its appearance in the British 

 Islands is in the highest degree uncertain, 

 and apparently capricious. 



' There is something very extraordinary in 

 the periodical, but irregular, appearances of 

 this species. . . . It is plentiful some years, 

 after which it will not be seen by anyone for 

 eight, or ten, or more years, and then appear 

 again as plentiful as before. To suppose they 

 come from the Continent is an idle conjecture ; 

 because the English specimens are easily dis- 

 tinguished from all others by the superior 

 whiteness of their borders. Perhaps their 

 eggs in this climate, like the seeds of some 

 vegetables, may occasionally lie dormant for 

 several seasons, and not hatch until some ex- 

 traordinary but undiscovered coincidences 

 awake them into active life." This sentence 

 lias often been quoted with apparent appro- 

 bation, but I feel considerable difficulty in 

 the solut on, because the eggs of 



the Vanessidae pass so few days in that state, 

 and would, of necessity, fall with the falling 

 leaves of the willow, and the young caterpillar 

 on emergence would be irretrievably separated 

 from its food-plant. 



From Ireland I have a report of one taken 

 at Killarney in July, 1865, by W. G. Bat- 

 tersby. In Scotland a' so one was taken by 

 the late Charles Turner, in the Ramoch dis- 

 trict. I saw this specimen, and have no doubt 

 of its genuineness. Indeed, Turner com- 

 bined with many eccentricities, and I may 

 say errors, a love of truthfulness in entomo- 

 logical matters that I could always depend 

 on. Mr. Thomas Chapman has information of 

 others at Paisley and Edinburgh. In England 

 its appearances are numerous, almost every 

 county boasting its single individual. For- 

 merly tbS^ was not the case. From the wav 

 in which Moses Harris writes of this butter- 

 fly in England, we are led to suppose that in 

 his time it was regarded as no great rarity. 

 In his " Aurelian " lie merely says that it 

 goes through its changes and appears on the 

 wing a* the same time as the Peacock. Lewin 

 is nvrn explicit : 



' J hree of these beautiful and rare insects 

 were taken in the year 1748, near Camber- 

 we'u, in Surrey, from which time until the 

 year 1789 we have no account of any being 

 seen in England. The middle of August, 

 1789, I was surprised with the sight of two 

 of the^e elegant flies ne ir Faversham, in Kent, 

 one of which I thought it great good fortune 

 to take ; but in the course of the week I was 

 more agreeably surprised with seeing and 

 taking numbers of them in the most perfect 

 condition. One of my sons found an old 

 decoy pond of large extent, surrounded with 

 willow and sallow trees, and a great number 

 of these butterflies flying about and at rest 01 

 the trees; many of them appearing to be just 

 out of the chrysalis, left no room to doubt 

 that this was the place where they bred. In 

 March, 1790, a number of these insects were 

 flying and soaring about for the space ol 

 twelve or fourteen days; and then, as if wiih 

 one consent, they migrated from us, and wore 

 no more se^n." 



