396 BRITISH BUTTERFLIES. 



piece in C. dispar. The coloration of the ventral area of R. phlaeas is 

 rather darker than the dorsal, especially the antenna- and haustellurn- 

 covers. The wing-cases show darker mottling between the veins (Bacot). 

 Time of appearance. — The species is single- brooded, double- brooded, 

 triple-brooded, or continuously-brooded, according to its habitat, as 

 determined by its altitude, or latitude, or both. It may, therefore, be 

 seen on the wing at some part or other within the limits of its 

 distribution, from the' commencement of January to the end of December. 

 Walker notes, at Gibraltar (Ent. Mo. Mag., xxiv., p. 175), the occurrence 

 of a specimen on January 1st. 1888. There is no doubt that, in the most 

 extreme northerly points of its distribution, it is single-brooded, with 

 a long hybernating period as larva ; in the greater part of its habitats 

 in the north temperate regions, both of the Palsearctic and Nearctic 

 areas, it is double-brooded, the first brood of imagines (from hybernating 

 larvae) appearing from April to early June, the second in late July and 

 early August, with a strong tendency to form a partial third brood 

 emerging in October, which is converted into a very complete third 

 brood in summers and autumns with suitable meteorological conditions. 

 In the south of its range, in the Mediterranean area, this triple- 

 broodedness is complete, whilst the imagines of October often attempt 

 a further brood, which is responsible for the records of imagines 

 occurring in December, January, or February, which one occasionally 

 meets with in the sheltered southern parts of Europe, North Africa, and 

 southwestern Asia. In the Nearctic area the times of appearance are 

 almost the same as in the Pahearctic, but Scudder appears to take no 

 account of its extreme northern outposts nor its habitats at high 

 altitudes, nor, indeed, to give much detail concerning its habits in its 

 most southern localities in North America ; still, his account (already 

 given antea, pp. 345-346) of the variation in its times of appearance at 

 various latitudes in America, gives sufficient material for useful 

 comparison with our own data. As bearing directly on this question 

 of various-broodedness is the question of its ability to hybernate in the 

 larval stage in various stadia rather than in one fixed stadium, and also 

 the habit of the winter larvae, nibbling as it were, even in temperate 

 regions, whenever the weather is at all mild, in order to enable them 

 to get as much growth as possible before their more rapid development 

 in spring. Schneider insists that the species occurs at Tromso, from 

 mid- June to mid- September, in one long drawn-out brood — giving as 

 specific dates of capture — June 26th, 1877, June 21st, 1883, June 30th, 

 1884, June 28th, 1886, June 21st, 1890, July 7th, 1891, July 29th, 

 1897 — whilst Strand records that the species is doublebrooded in the 

 Suldal, one brood appearing in June, the other in August, and both 

 these Scandinavian records are possibly accurate, when one compares 

 the different climatic conditions of 69-pN. lat. and 59°N. lat., whilst 

 Schneider's record is somewhat substantiated by Chapman's, who 

 found the species not uncommon between July 10th-17th, 1898, at 

 Bossekop, in 70°N. lat. In support of its continuous- broodedness in 

 the south, Walker's dates for Gibraltar and the surrounding country 

 are interesting. These are (in litt.) — January 1st, 1888, on the rock 

 at Gibraltar;' February 28th, 1888, in the Cork Woods; February 

 28th (one), March 7th, April 8th, 1887, in the Cork Woods; June 4th- 

 June 28th, 1887, in the Cork Woods (var. eleus) : June 9th, 1888, in 

 the Cork Woods (var. eleus) ; August 20th, 1887, near Algeciras (var. 



