174 THE MARBLED BUTTERFLY. 



considered as one of the most interesting of British 

 lepidopterous insects.* 



* Professor Rennie says, that a species of mite, or bug, 

 ( Leptus phalangii of Degeer) infests this insect ; and that he 

 particularly remarked it in the year 1830, at Havre de Grace. 

 So thickly studded were some of the poor animals with these 

 troublesome parasites, that they were hardly able to fly, from 

 the exhaustion caused by the little bloodsuckers ; and so 

 pertinaciously did they maintain their hold, that several of them 

 adhered to the Papilios even after they were placed in the Pro- 

 fessor's cabinet. It is a remarkable circumstance, that although 

 the Ringlet Butterfly, (^Hipparchia hyperanthus,} was very 

 abundant at the same time, and their food and habits are 

 similar to those of the Galathea^ not one of the parasites was 

 to be found in some hundreds which he caught expressly for 

 the purpose of ascertaining the fact.-}- The common Humble 

 Bee is infested by a parasitic mite, which often proves the cause 

 of its death ; but it has been observed, that, differently from the 

 mites above mentioned, they always quit the bee before death, 

 or at least the instant it dies. 



t Insect Trans, p. 28. 



