60 BRITISH BUTTERFLIES. 



about noon, on egglaying intent. She flew to a plant, rested very 

 quietly for a minute or so, moved her hindwings backwards and 

 forwards very quickly for a moment, curved her abdomen, and then 

 flew off. I picked the leaf and found the very pale green egg at once 

 (see Ent. Bee, xii., pi. xi., fig. 2). The $ continued to act in a 

 similar manner, and several times appeared to rest as if about to lay 

 another egg, but no other was observed to be laid (Tutt). W. B. 

 Davis states (in lift.) that, in August, 1905, he procured several ova by 

 closely watching the ? s when ovipositing, the eggs being laid singly 

 and near the base of plants of Uippocrepis comdm; the 2 ,. after alight- 

 ing, usually crawled for some distance through the herbage, till it 

 reached a plant, when, pushing its way as near the rootstock as- 

 possible, it bent its abdomen under and thrust out the ovipositor, 

 affixing the egg to whatever it came in contact, more often the 

 stem or a lower leaflet of the foodplant, although Davis adds that 

 he witnessed two eggs laid in this way on grass stems. Eayward 

 says (in litt.) that the egg is usually laid on or near a plant 

 of Hippocrepis comosa, frequently, and perhaps most usually, on 

 the underside of a leaf, but the $ does not always restrict 

 herself to the foodplant when ovipositing, and, if an egg or two be 

 found on the leaves, others will probably be discovered on stalks of 

 dried grass and other herbage growing close to the ground around the 

 roots of the foodplant. This is so frequently the case that one suppoees 

 that the egg stands a better chance of surviving when attached to 

 grasses and herbage that do not decompose, than when laid on the 

 H. comosa, which dies down during the winter. When first laid, the 

 egg has a dull greenish- white ground colour, overlaid by a beautiful 

 tracery of white crystalline network, dividing the surface into a large 

 number of irregular-sided cells; in the course of a day or two the 

 green shade fades away, and the surface becomes a pale, dull white ; in 

 this condition it passes the winter, and hatches towards the end of 

 April or beginning of May. Chapman observes that, in laying her eggs 

 on a plant of Hippocrepis that grows on comparatively bare ground on the 

 Riviera, the plants lying flat on it and spread as a circular patch, but 

 which also grows amongst other plants, the $ alights as nearly as she 

 conveniently can to the centre of the plant, turns round and creeps down, 

 sometimes her own length, softnetimes two' or three times as much, till 

 she is close to the ground, or, by the tangle of plants, cannot go any 

 further; then, rather by backing than by turning round, she gets the 

 ovipositor deep in the plant and near the ground, and lays her egg on 

 the underside of leaf or stem; twice 1 eggs were laid on weak shoots a 

 few millimetres long, in the centre of a plant that had trailing stems 

 of many inches, in another under a leaf close to the ground and under 

 the foliages in a, fourth instance 1 it was laid on the stem of a, little 

 seedling tielianthemnm that happened to be struggling upwards in the 

 centre of the papilionaceous plant. Plants being abundant, only a few 

 inches quiet flight took the butterfly from one to the next; twice a 

 laying $ was noticed to fly off, once to rest on the ground, in the 

 other case to visit a flower. li is difficult to watch the butterflies, 



ami spot and find the eggs, so that the four noted above were the only 

 ones found. As so much care IS taken by the ? s of the early brood 



on the Riviera, whose eggs hatch at once, one would expect that the 

 ogg< that have to pass over the winter would be even more carefully 



