THE WASP AND BUTTERFLY. 199 



a few half-animated creatures alone struggled into be- 

 ing ; yet this " painted lady " was fostered into life, and 

 became the commonest butterfly of the year: it has, 

 however, but very partially visited us since that period. 

 The keenest entomologist, perhaps, would not much 

 lament the absence of this beauty, if such cheerless 

 seasons were always requisite to bring it to perfection. 

 Some years ago a quantity of earth was raised in cut- 

 ting a canal in this county ; and, in the ensuing sum- 

 mer, on the herbage that sprang up from this new soil 

 on the bank, this butterfly was found in abundance, 

 where it had not been observed for many years before. 

 The marble butterfly (papilio galathea) is an equally 

 capricious visitant of our fields. I have known in- 

 tervals of ten or twelve years when none could be 

 found, and in some following seasons it would be a pre- 

 vailing species. 



The common wasp (vespa vulgaris) is infinitely un- 

 certain in its numbers. A mild winter, and a dry spring 

 or summer, we might conclude to be favorable circum- 

 stances for the increase of this creature ; yet such is 

 not always the case. Years productive of the plum are 

 said to be congenial likewise to the wasp. A local 

 rhyme will have it, that 



" When the plum hangs on the tree, 



Then the wasp you're sure to see." 



Amid the tribes of insects so particularly influenced by 

 seasons, there are a few which appear little affected by 

 common events; the brown meadow butterfly (papilio 

 janira), so well known to every one, I have never missed 

 in any year; and in those damp and cheerless summers, 

 when even the white cabbage butterfly is scarcely to be 

 found, this creature may be seen in every transient 

 gleanf, drying its wings, and tripping from flower to 

 flower with animation and life, nearly the sole possessor 

 of the field and its sweets. Dry and exhausting as the 

 summer may be, yet this dusky butterfly is uninjured 

 by it, and we see it in profusion hovering about the 

 sapless foliage. In that arid summer of 1826, the 

 abundance of these creatures, and of the lady-bird 



