AND < ** 



JOURNAL of VARIATION. 



Vol. XXXIII. No. 1. January 15th, 1921. 



EDITORIAL. 



We are glad to be able to announce that Dr. E. A. Cockayne has 

 consented to join our Editorial Staff, and in welcoming him most 

 heartily we would remind our readers that his advent brings an old 

 friend and contributor officially among us. We feel that he will be 

 a real source of strength to us, for he is an experienced morphologist 

 and microscopist and a first class field observer. 



His experiences in the " ice free sea " during the war, as well as 

 elsewhere, will probably be counted by him as events even to be re- 

 membered, quite regardless of the strenuousness of the times through 

 which he passed. — G.T.B.-B. 



Considerations on the possibility that Alpine species of Butterflies 

 are possessed of a remarkable latent faculty, exercised under 

 peculiar circumstances in connection with the Act of Egg= 

 laying. 



By B. C. S. WABBEN, F.E.S. 



Many collectors who use pill boxes for carrying their captures, 

 will have noticed at one time or another that a 5 butterfly so enclosed 

 has laid a few ova in the box. This is, however, a decidedly rare 

 occurrence, so my attention was drawn to the matter some years ago, 

 when I noted ova, so laid, on frequent occasions ; but it was not until 

 August, 23rd, 1913, when two 2 Erebia manto laid eighteen ova in 

 two boxes, that I began to become interested in this unnatural habit. 

 The eggs were fixed in rows to the sides of the boxes, and, with one 

 exception, in which one egg was laid on top of another, each egg was 

 separate from its neighbours. 



I had in the weeks immediately preceding this date found ova 

 deposited in boxes by several other species of Erebia, and subsequently 

 noted the same on quite a number of occasions. Unfortunately, I 

 made no notes at the time (except of the occasion mentioned above,, 

 and one other), but I was struck by the fact that all the species which 

 behaved in this manner belonged to the genus Erebia. Although 

 writing from memory, I can state with certainty that ova were 

 deposited in this manner, on more than one occasion each, by E. 

 pharte, E. oeme, E. pronoe var. pitho, E. tyndarus, E. manto and E. 

 gorge, in the case of the last two on, at least, half a dozen times each. 



