97 



small example of Polyommatus icarus in which there was 

 an absence of all the spots, except the discoidal, from the 

 central area of the underside of the wing. 



Mr. Buckstone stated that some pupae of Pieris brassicce, 

 which he was keeping in a flower pot on damped moss, had 

 an unusually pale delicate green tinge while in the damp 

 atmosphere, but that this passed rapidly away when the 

 glass cover was removed. Various suggestions were made 

 that it was an apparent change of colour produced by a thin 

 layer of moisture on the surface of the pupa ; and that the 

 moisture rendered the pupal integument more transparent, 

 so that the naturally delicate green of the internal substance 

 showed much more plainly than it does normally. 



Mr. Ray ward exhibited a female Polyommatus icarus 

 captured at Reigate, Surrey, in 1904 ; a male of the same 

 species taken at the same place in 1905 ; two males of 

 Lyccsna avion captured in North Cornwall in 1908 ; a male 

 Colias hyale taken at Reigate in 1901, and a female Euchloe 

 carda mines bred in 1906 from a female taken at Horsley, 

 Surrey, in 1905 ; all being exceedingly small, and very much 

 below the normal size of the respective species. 



Attention was drawn to the fact that the P. icarus, L. 

 ariou, and C. Jiyale, when captured, were flying with others 

 of quite normal size, and that the whole of the remainder of 

 the bred brood of E. cardamines, although reared in the 

 same cage, and under precisely the same conditions, as the 

 dwarf specimens exhibited, were also quite up to the average 

 of the species. 



The exhibitor pointed out that most breeders of lepidop- 

 tera were aware of the tendency of many species bred in 

 confinement to arrive at the imaginal state below the average 

 normal size, and the cause is usually — and doubtless properly 

 in most instances — ascribed to unsuitability of conditions, or 

 of food; he thought, however, that this explanation would 

 not always hold good, either with respect to bred or to 

 captured dwarf specimens, and expressed the opinion that 

 the occasional occurrence of these was probably due to 

 natural variation arising from conditions inherent in the 

 constitution of the insect, rather than to unsuitability of 

 conditions or environment. 



The Reports of the various Field Meetings were read. 



