10 



Naturalist." This insect very rarely appears until late in September, and then so 

 perfect and fresh in its plumage as to manifest its recent production from the chry- 

 salis. In some years they abound, and we may see twenty of these beautiful creatures 

 expanding and closing their brilliant wings upon the fruit trees on our walls, or 

 basking in the disc of some autumnal flower ; and at another perhaps hardly a 

 specimen is to be obtained : nor do they seem like the wasp, to be scarce or abun- 

 dant according to the deficiency or plenty of the season, but influenced by other 

 causes. Many of our butterflies are produced by successive hatches supplying the 

 places of those which have been destroyed, and here it is difficult to mark the dura- 

 tion of an individual ; and others, as the nettle, peacock, and wood-tortoise, in many 

 instances, survive the winter hidden in some recess or sheltered apartment, appearing 

 in the spring time worn and shabby. But V. atalanta appears only in the autumn, 

 not as a preserved creature, but as a recent production ; and here we can ascertain 

 the duration of its life to be comprised only of September to the end of October, by 

 which time its food in our gardens has pretty well disappeared. Some sheltered 

 wall, garnished with the bloom of the ivy, may protect its being a little longer, but 

 the cold and the dampness of the season soon destroy it, rendering the life of this 

 creature, the most beautiful of our Lepidopterous tribes, of very brief duration." 



Mr. Jonathan Couch has recorded some instances of boldness in this species, 

 (Mag. Nat. Hist. No. 25), a specimen having allowed him to approach it with his 

 fingers so closely as to lead him to think it was blind, not appearing to notice move- 

 ments at about three inches distance ; others manifested so strong a relish for some 

 rotten pears that he took them off with his fingers, over which they crawled without 

 fear. Mr. Lukis has also detailed some similar familiarities effected with this insect 

 in the same work, (No. 33). 



Sepp informs us, that the young caterpillars, almost as soon as hatched, have 

 the instinct to spin several threads, in order to draw together the edges of a leaf 

 into a roundish hollow form, leaving for the most part an opening into the interior 

 before and behind. The leaf, when thus drawn together, serves as a house or tent 

 for the little creature, and at the same time furnishes it with food ; and hence the 

 longer it lives in it the more perforated it becomes. When it has gnawed so much 

 as to render the leaf useless as a defence, it selects a new leaf, proceeding with it in 

 the same manner as it did with the first. Sepp considers that this habit results from 

 its solitary mode of life, the eggs also being deposited separately ; and it being 

 well known to Naturalists that all caterpillars originating from eggs thus deposited 

 are solitary, as those originating from clustered eggs are gregarious. These cater- 

 pillars, like all others, cast their skins several times ; and Sepp gives the following 

 dates of two which were hatched on the 12th of July. Their first casting of the 

 skins occurred on the 14th, the second on the 17th, the third on the 21st, and the 

 fourth on the 26th. They then continued to eat till the 15th of August, when they 

 prepared to enter the pupa state, which circumstance took place on the 17th of 



August. 



In the Magazine of Natural History, No. 31, January 1833, the Rev. W. T. 

 Bree has figured an insect from the Himalayan Mountains, strongly resembling this 

 species, or rather it is intermediate between it and Cynthia Cardui (plate II.), 





