GONEPTEKYX RHAMNI AND CLEOPATRA IN IRELAND. 303 



tree of R. frangida. The male insects are the most ardent 

 suitors imaginable, and I have many times watched one for over 

 half an hour persisting in a courtship which was evidently not 

 welcome. In this particular case the female had laid several 

 eggs on the tree, and was proceeding down the ride to another 

 bush, when she was seized upon by a male, and the usual 

 struggle for supremacy began. I watched them for many minutes, 

 till they finally disappeared over the tops of the larch trees. (I 

 have since had access to certain German works on European 

 butterflies at the Natural History Museum, South Kensington, 

 and find that the fact that this variety is double-brooded is 

 well known.) From the middle of July onwards the work of 

 ovipositing was busily proceeded with, B. frangida receiving 

 nearly all the attention, R. catharticus, however, being noticed 

 occasionally. 



Up to this point all had gone smoothly, but, alas ! this was 

 not to continue : the little larvae, on emerging from their eggs, 

 did not look upon R.frangula as food fit to be eaten. Some, 

 indeed, nibbled a little, and kept themselves alive for three or 

 four days, and then disappeared, but the large majority passed 

 away at once, and were no more seen. Better luck, however, 

 attended those few which found themselves born into the world 

 on R. catharticus. Provided they had been laid on, or had access 

 to, the tender, only half-unfolded leaves of a young shoot, their 

 fate was never in doubt. They crawled into one of these half- 

 closed leaves and remained there until after the first moult, or 

 perhaps longer. For the first half of their larval career they 

 ate nothing but the very youngest leaves, and even when nearly 

 full-grown would refuse foliage which was in the least degree old 

 or tough. Thus I was confronted by the annoying spectacle of 

 the mother butterfly almost invariably choosing the useless food- 

 plant whereon to place her eggs, and passing by the one really 

 suitable for her purpose. On several occasions I have seen a 

 female, after hovering all round a bush of catharticus, refuse it, and 

 proceed at once to a neighbouring frangida and lay on it. The 

 full-grown larva of cleopatra is generally slightly superior in size 

 to that of 7'hamni, and exhibits a bluish hue over the dorsal 

 surface, the white lateral lines being remarkably clear. The 

 pupal stage, I found, lasted twenty-five days, sometimes a little 

 longer, and for eight to ten days previous to emergence the orange 

 colour on the fore wings of the males showed through the wing- 

 cases as a broad patch of colour. The previous autumn I had 

 planted out three or four small plants of R. alaternus var. an- 

 gustifoUus, and I placed several newly-hatched larvae on sprigs of 

 this plant, but they would not touch it. This I am quite unable 

 to explain, alaternus being the natural food-plant of cleopatra in 

 Southern Europe. 



As soon as I had quite convinced myself that R. frangida 



