A CATALOGUE OF THE LEPIDOPTERA OF IRELAND. 157 



a fellow fliitterer in distress, or to go snacks with the decoy in a 

 fancied feast, or to the hope of discovering a new nectar, — 

 whether the motive he love, or combativeness, or playfulness, or 

 simply inquisitiveness, does not concern us much just now ; it is 

 sufficient for our purpose to know that butterflies are decoyable. 

 With respect to the practical procedure of decoying, two 

 notions have struck me as possible improvements on the existing 

 methods;— the first is a mechanical decoy with life-like move- 

 ments, the second the more perfect concealment of the operator. 

 With regard to the former, no doubt a lively insect, harnessed by 

 a loop of fine silk drawn round the thorax between the anterior 

 and posterior pairs of wings, with a foot or two of tether,* would 

 be most " fetching," but I hesitate to suggest anything which 

 savours of cruelty, though it would certainly be less objectionable 

 on that score than the pinning of the living insect : nor do the 

 requirements of the case seem to demand such a display of real 

 vitality. I shall next proceed to show how the natural move- 

 ments of the insect can be closely imitated by a person operating 

 from a distance of ten or even twenty yards. 



(To be continued.) 



A CATALOGUE OF THE LEPIDOPTERA OF IRELAND. 



By W. F. de Vismes Kane, M.A., M.R.I.A., F.E.S. 

 (Continued from p. 121.) 



MELiT.aEA AURiNiA, Rott, ARTEMIS, Fab. — Widely distributed 

 in Ireland, but very local. Often abundant in suitable localities, 

 but apparently unstable and fluctuating in numbers, so that it 

 disappears for years, or lingers in reduced numbers, as at 

 Cromlyn, where the race, from which the var. hihernica was 

 described, formerly abounded. The larva is very subject to 

 parasites, which may in part account for the phenomenon. On 

 the other hand, this butterfly has been known to increase so 

 prodigiously that whole fields and roads become blackened by 

 the moving myriads of larvae. An instance of this was observed, 

 by the Rev. S. L. Brakey, near Ennis, Co. Clare, where he 

 drove out to see a reported " shower of worms," and found as 

 above described, the larvae being so multitudinous in some fields 

 that the black layer of insects seemed to roll in corrugations as 

 the migrating hosts swarmed over each other in search of food. 

 The imagines that resulted from the starved survivors were 

 extremely small and faded in colour, one male of which is in my 

 cabinet, 1 in. 3 lines in expanse. Larvae found by me near New- 



'■- Since writing tlie above, I have been informed that this method has 

 ah'eady been successfully employed in the case of Colias edusa, but I can 

 find no record of the circumstance. — H. G. K. 



