LARGE TORTOISE-SHELL BUTTERFLY. 7 



occurririg in the south, but not generally common, and it is a coinci- 

 dence perhaps worth notice that whilst the only locality given where 

 it was then "abundant" was Lyndhurst, in Hampshire, in the centre 

 of the New Forest, that in the past season the notes of injury caused 

 by this rare infestation were from Lymington, on the southern border 

 of the New Forest, not many miles from the above locality of its 

 former abundance. 



The Va7iessa pohjchloros, or Large Tortoise-shell Butterfly, is a 

 remarkably handsome insect about two and a half inches across in the 

 spread of the fore wings, which are marked (as figured at p. 6) with 

 black blotches or spots on a tawny or orange-red ground. It will be 

 seen that there are two large squarish blotches, and a smaller one, 

 along the fore edge of the wing, four about the size of the smaller 

 costal blotch disposed in the centre, and towards the hinder part of 

 the wing ; the outer margin is dark, with an irregular pale line in it. 

 The hind wings are also tawny or orange-red, but with only one black 

 blotch, and the dark border is varied by blue crescent-shaped markings, 

 as well as by pale colouring forming a kind of irregular line outside 

 them. The under sides of the wings are marked transversely with 

 wavy lines, the basal half being thus of a mottled and of a brownish 

 tint, succeeded by a broad greyish band, and this by a dark border at 

 the edge of the wing, with a wavy blue band, or line of blue crescents, at 

 the inner margin ; in the centre of the hind wings is a little white spot. 

 Along rather more than a third of the basal part of the cost a (fore 

 edge) of the fore wings is a row of long strong bristles, which were 

 considered by the Dutch entomologist, Mons. P. C. T. Snellen, to be 

 the structural characteristic by which the V. pohjchloros, or Great 

 Tortoise-shell, might be distinguished from the F. urticcE, the Small 

 Tortoise-shell Butterfly, which sometimes is exceedingly similar in 

 colouring to the larger and nearly allied species.* 



In this country, the caterpillars are given by Prof. Westwood and 

 Mr. H. T. Stainton as especially feeding on Elm ; and the caterpillars 

 from which the late W. Buckler's descriptions were taken, f were 

 received by him on Elm twigs ; and in Edw. Newman's ' British 

 Butterflies,' the English food trees are given by the author as the 

 Aspen, the White Beam, Sallow, Osiers, more commonly the different 

 species or varieties of Elm ; and in gardens it is also found on Cherry 

 and Pear trees. Mr. Newman also observes : — " The wild and culti- 

 vated Cherry [Prunus cerasiis) , the Cerisier and Griothier of the French, 

 seems the tree chiefly selected in France, and whole rows of these 



* See ' Entomologist's Monthly Magazine,' No. for September, 1883, p. 82. 

 t See 'British Butterflies and Moths,' by the late W. Buckler (Ray Society), 

 vol. ii p. 54. 



