OCCUREENCE OF COLIAS EDUSA AND C. HYALE. 3 



only observed three helice. The edusa varied much in condition, 

 some being freshly emerge^, while others very very worn ; one 

 pair I took m coitu on Sept. 22nd ; the female was so much worn 

 that it evidently had been flying for several days, but the male 

 was, from its perfect condition, only just emerged. This worn 

 female, and others kept aHve for the purpose, deposited freely, 

 and the worn one continued producing eggs until Oct. 3rd ; the 

 larvae from them are now feeding, and will probably produce 

 imagines about the end of December or early in January. 



On Aug. 15th last I received a communication stating that 

 C. edusa was swarming in South Devon, and that the var. 

 helice was numerous. I thereupon wrote to my friend, Dr. 

 EUiot, of Kingsbridge, expressing a wish to obtain living ex- 

 amples of helice, for the purpose of getting eggs and in the hope 

 of rearing the variety. Upon receipt of my letter the doctor, 

 most kindly, at once set out in search of specimens, and 

 despatched five living helice to me on the 17th. These arrived 

 at noon the next day, during my visit to Sheerness after C. 

 hyale. Upon their arrival my wife found them to be in a very 

 feeble state, owing to their long journey in the excessive heat 

 then prevailing ; she therefore fed them with sweetened water, 

 and four of them survived. They were then placed upon a 

 clover-plant, and one almost immediately commenced depositing. 

 The following day I singled them out on to four separate plants 

 of clover, and during the following eight days the four deposited 

 in all between 850 and 900 eggs ; these began to hatch on Aug. 

 24th, remaining only six days in the egg state, accountable to 

 the hot weather. The first larva became full-fed and spun up 

 on Sept. 19th ; it pupated on the 21st, and the first imago 

 emerged on Oct. 5th. 



As will be seen by the following notes, the results attained 

 out of the entire number reared are very interesting, as it shows 

 the large proportion of helice produced from helice parents, 

 which almost equal the normal females ; in fact, exactly the 

 same number of each emerged for several days, and it was only 

 during the last few days of their emergence that the normal 

 females gained slightly the lead. 



As might be expected, the first specimens that emerged were 

 males, many appearing before any females. The number of 

 males bred amount to 302, of normal females 125, and helice 110, 

 making a total of 537 of both sexes. It will be thus seen that the 

 number of helice bred almost equals that of the normal females, 

 and that the total number of females is 235 against 302 males. I 

 had expected to breed a larger number of specimens, but from 

 some mysterious cause quite 250 or 300 larvas disappeared, as I 

 had about 850 feeding when they were between the first and 

 third moults (as I counted quite that number when changing their 

 food-plants) ; but upon counting all the pupae and the few larvae 



b2 



