210 BRITISH BUTTERFLIES. 



and have curved sides. On the outer margins, the cells are regular 

 triangles arrayed in hexagonal order, and some O05mm. in diameter ; 

 at the margins and sides the columns are pyramidal, with about six 

 ridges of the converging cell- walls running up them, the tip being 

 rather blunt (Chapman). Of a very compressed spherical form, its 

 greatest diameter measuring -625mm., but only -31mm. in height. 

 The base is slightly concave, the crown being more so, and the 

 operculum (micropylar area) deeply sunken, and very finely punctured ; 

 the punctures are smallest in the centre, increasing in size on nearing 

 the side, where they develop into a very beautifully formed pattern, 

 resembling fine lace-work, composed of a number of prominences 

 placed at somewhat regular intervals, and connected one with another by 

 six keels or spokes, the interstices between each being very deep, the 

 reticulations again lessening in size on nearing the undersurface, 

 which is likewise deeply punctured, and of a spongy character. Both 

 the colour and texture greatly resemble white porcelain ; all the depths 

 produce a deep purplish-grey shade (Frohawk). White in colour, of a 

 circular form, flattened and depressed in the centre, both above and 

 below, covered with raised white reticulation, except at the top. It 

 does not change colour, but retains its pure dead-white appearance, 

 even after the exit of the larva (Buckler). The egg is figured by Clark 

 (Ent. Rec, xii., pi. xi., fig. 5), also by Tonge, see our pi. i., fig. 5. 



Habits of larva. — The larva makes its exit by eating away a 

 small round hole in the crown of the egg, which has the appearance 

 of a small black dot ; placed inside the expanding flowers of Ulex 

 europaeus, the young larvae were noticed soon afterwards feeding on 

 the tender portions of the stamens and petals (Frohawk); placed on 

 growing plants of Ornithopus perpusillus and Erica tetralix, they 

 appeared to wander off and perish ; but placed in test-tubes on 

 Ornithopus perpusillus, they appeared to do fairly well, but took almost 

 three weeks to become fullfed in the first instar : at first they were 

 able to drop by a thread, and, in moving about, appeared to spin for 

 themselves a silken ladder as a foothold (Chapman). Some newly- 

 hatched larvae, placed by Buckler on Ornithopus perpusillus^ fed on the 

 leaflets, making small transparent blotches thereon, and continued so to 

 do in their later instars, although, even when from -25ins. to -375ins. in 

 length, they did not eat through the leaflets, bat only devoured the green 

 cuticle. In the second stadium, those ted on Ulex europaeus still 

 devoured only the stamens and pistils of the flowers, some of the 

 blossoms having the petals thickly perforated by them (Frohawk); those 

 living on the leaves of Ornithopus perpusillus, are stated to have closely 

 resembled, in their younger stages, the hairy leaflets on which they 

 fed ; whilst those on gorse- blossom are said, when young, to be very 

 similar in form and colour to the small brown bracts of the bloom. 

 These latter larva' continued to feed thereon as long as the gorse 

 remained in bloom, and when the gorse- blossom failed, took readily to the 

 young and tender spines. The young Larva is noted by Buckler to have 

 powers of locomotion of the feeblest description, whilst Frohawk 

 records the larva throughout life as being extremely sluggish in its 

 movements, with a slow gliding motion, continually protruding and 

 withdrawing its head, and waving it from side to side during its 

 progression, but when at rest its head completely withdrawn under 

 the large overlapping prothorax. The larva* vary considerably in their 



