JAN A- 1894 



THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



Vol. XXVL] DECEMBEE, 1893. [No. 367. 



THE COLOUEING OF CHUYSOPHANUS PHLCEAS AS 

 AFFECTED BY TEMPEEATUEE. 



By F. Mekrifield, F.E.S. 



I HAVE read with the interest that always attaches to 

 Mr. Frohawk's contributions to entomological knowledge, his 

 notes on this subject in the ' Entomologist ' (ante, p. 294). 

 I do not doubt that his personal observations are accurate, but 

 think I can show that his notes, which he regards as " to a great 

 extent adverse to Mr. Merrifield's views on the effects of tem- 

 perature on the colouring of C. phloeas (Trans. Ent. Soc. 1893, 

 Pt. I., p. 63)," are in fact entirely consistent with my recorded 

 experimental results. It would be extraordinary to me if they 

 were not so, for temperature per se must produce the same 

 effects in a field as in a room, though in the open country it 

 may often be difficult, and sometimes impossible, to prove or 

 trace those results, because the means of observation there are 

 necessarily so inferior in precision. My experimental results 

 are not, in my opinion, capable of any other explanation than 

 that an average temperature of from 80° to 90° during the pupal 

 period, or the sensitive part of it, caused those appearances in 

 the general colouring of C. phloeas which Mr. Frohawk correctly 

 summarises in the words, " the copper-colouring dull and the 

 black markings pale." Mr. Frohawk describes his specimens, 

 captured on the 5th and 6th of September last, as of bright 

 copper-colour with the black deep, and, as he assumes that 

 their pupal period was passed while a high temperature pre- 

 vailed, he infers that, if my views were correct, his captures 

 ought to have corresponded with my high temperature forms. 

 To establish the conclusion thus arrived at, it would be 

 necessary to show that the *' high temperature " to which the 

 pupse of Mr. Frohawk's captures were exposed was as high a 



ENTOM. — DEC, 1893. " 2h 



