226 PAriLTONIDi^ — BUTTERFLIES. 



Grandson, Canton de Yand, perceived with surprise an im- 

 mense (light of Butterflies traversing the garden with great 

 rapidity. They were all of the species called Jielle Dame 

 by the French, and by the English the Painted Lady {Va- 

 nessa cardui, Stephens). They were all flying close to- 

 gether in the same direction, from south to north, and were 

 so little afraid when any one approached, that they turned 

 not to the right or to the left. The flight continued for 

 two hours without interruption, and the column was about 

 ten or fifteen feet broad. They did not stop to alight on 

 flowers ; but flew onward, low and equally. This fact is 

 the more singular, when it is considered that the larvae of the 

 Vanessa cardui are not gregarious, but are solitary from 

 the moment they are hatched ; nor are the Butterflies them- 

 selves usually found together in numbers. Professor Bo- 

 nelli, of Turin, however, observed a similar flight of the 

 same species of Butterflies in the end of March preceding 

 their appearance at Grandson, when it may be presumed 

 they had just emerged from the pupa state. Their flight, 

 as at Grandson, was from south to north, and their numbers 

 were so immense, that at night the flowers were literally 

 covered with them. As the spring advanced, their numbers 

 ■ diminished ; but even in June a few still continued. A simi- 

 lar flight of Butterflies is recorded about the end of the 

 last century by M. Loche, in the Memoirs of the Turin 

 Academy. During the whole season, these Butterflies, as 

 well as their larva3, were very abundant, and more beautiful 

 than usual.^ 



Pallas once saw such vast flights of the orange-tipped But- 

 terfly, Pontia cardamines, in the vicinity of Winofka, that 

 he at first mistook them for flakes of snow.^ At Barbados, 

 some days previous to the hurricane in 1780, the trees and 

 shrubs were entirely covered with a species of Butterfly of 

 the most beautiful colors, so as to screen from the sight the 

 branches, and even the trunks of the trees. In the after- 

 noon before the gale came on, and when it was quite still, 

 they all suddenly disappeared. The gale came on soon 

 after.^ Darwin tells us that several times, when the " Beagle" 



1 3Iaff. of Nat. Hist., i. 387, and Mem. de la Soc. de Phys. et d'llist. 

 Nat. de GenH^e. 



2 Penny Mag., 1844, p. 3. 



3 Gent. Mag., liv. 744. 



