BEBBm^HMH 



in the Isle of Wight in January. It has been generally supposed that these were 

 females, which had been impregnated late in the previous autumn, and had conse- 

 quently the instinct not to deposit their eggs until the following spring should 

 produce a supply of fresh food for their young : but this is opposed by Boisduval, 

 {Hist. Nat. LSpid. p. 29,) who asserts that they have undergone a state of lethargy 

 from the commencement of the preceding autumn ; whilst Mr. J. P. Brown (whose 

 observations are made at Thun in Switzerland) states, that he has repeatedly seen 

 this insect and Gonepteryx Rhamni in numbers by the 11th of February, and that 

 he has no doubt that these were individuals which were but just disclosed, and that 

 they appeared to him to have been males, (Mag. Nat. Hist. No. 39) ; but Mr. Bree 

 has adduced various proofs in the same work (No. 42, p. 523) sufficient to shew 

 that they certainly do hybernate in this country. 



Mr. Stephens describes a singular monstrosity of this insect, presented to him 

 by Mr. Doubleday, in which the right posterior wing has a perfect additional wing, 

 about one-third of the size of the original, arising from near the base of the costal 

 areolet, it is somewhat less angulated than the true wing, but its colours, both above 

 and below, are very bright and disposed as usual ; the proper wing is a little defective 

 on its anterior edge, and is smaller than the other, as though shrivelled, and the new 

 one which bears the additional one is incrassated. 



This is one of the species of butterflies which discharge a drop of reddish fluid 

 immediately after their arrival at the winged state, which is considered as analogous 

 to the meconium of infants, and which was evidently the cause of those " showers 

 of blood " which terrified our forefathers in the dark ages, and are recorded in the 

 old chronicles : thus, in the fifth century " at Yorke, it rayned bloud ;" and in 697 

 " corne, as it was gathered in the harvest time, appeared bloudie ;" and " on the 

 furthermost partes of Scotland it rayned bloud," (Hollinshed) ; and Gregory of 

 Tours relates that a bloody rain was seen at Paris in divers places in the days of 

 Childebert, also at the end of June in the days of King Robert, " so that the blood 

 which fell upon flesh, garments, or stones could not be washed out, but that which 

 fell on wood might." It is not to be supposed that so remarkable a circumstance 

 could be regarded otherwise than as fearfully ominous ; and accordingly, in 1553, it 

 was deemed among the forewarnings of the deaths of Charles and Philip, Dukes of 

 Brunswick, that there were " drops of blonde upon hearbes and trees," (Batman's 

 Doome) ; and, in 1608, even some divines judged that this was the work of the 

 devils and witches who had killed innocent young children. Pieresc, however, dis- 

 covered the true nature of these dreaded showers of blood in a very simple manner, 

 for having some months before " shut up in a box a certain palmer- worm which he 

 had found, rare for its bigness and form, which, when he had forgotten, he heard a 

 buzzing in the box, and when he opened it found the palmer-worm, having cast its 

 coat, to be turned into a very beautiful butterfly, which presently flew away, leaving 

 in the bottom of the box a red drop as broad as an ordinary sous or shilling ; and 

 because this happened about the beginning of the same month, and about the same time 

 an incredible multitude of butterflies were observed flying in the air, he was therefore 

 of opinion that such kind of butterflies resting upon the walls had there shed such 

 like drops, and of the same bigness." (Gassendis Life of Peiresc, quoted by Hone.) 



