— 38 - 



Fig. 13 die Seitenansicht des weiblichen Abdo- 

 mens mit Legetasclie, 



Fig. 14 die des männüchen Abdomens ohne Lege 



tasohe. 



■ Fig. 13. 



Die vier letzten Abbildungen sind sich paarweise 

 gegenübergestellt, um den Vorgang der Taschenbil- 

 dung möglichst anschauüch zu machen. Bei Fig. 11 

 und 12 ist nach der Trennung der Geschlechter die 

 Tasche zwischen den Valven des (J zurückgeblieben. 

 Bei Fig. 13 und 14 ist sie aus den Valven herausgerissen 

 und am Abdomen des Ç angeheftet. 



57. 83:15 



The Wonderful Sights of the English 

 Clover Field. 



by A. H. Swinton. 



All this time the emperor of China whoes dominions 

 were visited with clouds of locusts that obscured the 

 sun was offering up prayers for rain. Around Paris 

 the high roads commenced to swarm with the cater- 

 pillars of the gamma Moth, wherever you cast your 

 eye they were to be seen traversing them in all 

 directions and passing from field to field, but their 

 most lamentable ravages were discovered in the 

 kitchen gardens; the peasantry told Reamur they 

 thought a superannuated soldier or ugly old woman 

 .had brought them there by enchantment. In con- 

 sequence herbs were banished from the soup and 

 many were afraid to touch the salad. Renewed ex- 

 citement arose in the wet 1816 when these moths 

 arose in swarms during October as persons walked 

 over the grass in the northern departments of 

 France: then the European seaboard was drenched 

 with wet as far south as Oporto where a complaint 

 arose as the month drew to a close that the purple 

 grapes were being cut in the rain, half of them had 

 never ripened and it was predicted the comforting 

 bottle of Port Avine would be green and colourless. 

 Afterwards in the cold, stormy and wet 1860 the 

 caterpillars of the gamma moth were destructive in 

 Germany. 



The reason of the recurring wet years may be 

 discovered in the aspect of the sun, 1816, 1829, 

 1837 and 1860, according to the late Professor Ru- 

 dolf Wolf were years of most sun spots; and 1734, 



Fig. 14. 



1843 and 1878, those of fewest; and at either time 

 our daylight lamp behaves like a flaring electrical 

 one or watch out of order, phaeton appears to re- 

 linquish the paternal reins. At first sight it would 

 occur that the caterpillars of the gamma moth had 

 increased during the downpour because the herbs 

 in the fields and gardens were more deliciously juicy, 

 in which case if they fed up the moth would be larger, 

 or it may have been that their enemies were less 

 numerous or less active : kept in captivity with damp 

 food caterpillars are of course attacked by fungus 

 and decimated from epidemics. 



The two Clouded Yellow Butterflies, Colias, 

 that visit the sea side clover field in England are 

 familiar objects in Europe, parts of Asia and the 

 north of Africa. In the south of Europe they are 

 to be seen flying about in the spring but in the 

 British Islands they are not much noticed before 

 august: sometimes they vanish and then they re- 

 appear, it has been fancied that they lie dormant 

 for one or two years in the chrysalis state or that 

 they die off and a new swarm comes across the 

 channel; it is quite possible their eggs might be in- 

 troduced into a district with clover seed and this 

 might account for their erratic appearance in the 

 west of Scotland where they are rarely seen. I recall 

 that in the fifties and sixties of the past century 

 when the Netley Hospital was constructed, an edusa 

 was sometimes to be seen flying in hot haste along 

 the seaweed banks that bordered the Southampton 

 Water, but probably owing to the absence of clo- 

 ver fields neither was much talked about at 

 Southampton in my school days so when the gra- 

 velly common land at Warsash, long used to pastvu-e 

 donkeys and supply cottagers with peats and fire- 

 wood, came to be enclosed to grow strawberries for 

 the London market, it was quite a surprise in Sep- 

 tember 1895 to see one or two edusa at home at 

 Titchfield, the seat of an ancient monastery after- 

 wards the residence of the Earls of Southampton. 



to be continued. 



Redaktion : M. Rühl, Zürich V. — Verlag des Seitz'schen Werkes (Alfred Kernen), Stuttgart. 



Druck von H. Laupp jr. Tübingen. 



