KURALIS BETULiE. 



283 



nervule ; outer margin bordered with reddish-orange, edged internally with pale 

 ochreous, wider towards anal angle, the orange colour extending halfway along the 

 abdominal margin ; a black spot at anal angle, and one on the second median inter- 

 space ; fringes white, preceded by a black line which traverses the tail to the white 

 tip. Female orange-brown, clouded with greyish-brown towards the base of all the 

 wings, apex and outer margin black ; a black spot on secondaries in second median 

 interspace ; fringes whitish, grey at the base and, on the secondaries, at the ex- 

 tremities of nervules. Undersurface of primaries reddish-orange, secondaries 

 rather browner ; markings as in the male, except that the first transverse line of 

 secondaries extends farther across the wing. One female taken in July, and two 

 males captured in August, at Chang Yang. Also two females taken in the latter 

 month at Ichang ; these have the basal half of all the wings suffused with greyish- 

 brown and the marginal border of primaries is broader. The male bears a super- 

 ficial resemblance to the same sex of R. betulae from Europe, but it is much larger, 

 and the tails are longer and more slender (Leech). 



Leech first described this as a distinct species, but later (Butts, of 

 China, ii., p. 384) noted that, when he thus described it, he supposed 

 that the larger size and different coloration of the upperside of the 

 wings were of specific value, but, since receiving other specimens, not 

 only of elwesi, but also of crassa, from Moupin, he " is inclined to 

 consider both as exaggerated forms of R. betulae." Different as are the 

 specimens of elivesi on the upperside from those of var. crassa, it is 

 difficult to find any difference between the undersides of these insects. 

 On the upperside, the ground colour of the males is somewhat paler, 

 i.e., not so dark fuscous, and with a tint of yellow in it, forming a vague 

 shadowy band on the forewings, in the position of the ordinary pale 

 band in some males, and in the females of R. betulae. The females, 

 however, are very different, the forewings presenting a dark apex and 

 outer margin, all the rest of the wing, from the outer margin of the 

 usual female orange band to the base of the wing, deep orange, shaded 

 with glossy brownish only on the long hairs of the base of all the 

 wings ; a conspicuous dark linear discoidal spot. The hindwings also 

 entirely orange, except a black spot above the base of the tail; the 

 orange tails identical with the ground colour. The fringes whitish. 

 These notes are made from two males and two females from Chang 

 Yang, August, 1888 ; Moupin, July, 1890 (Kricheldorff); and Ichang 

 Gorge, September, 1887 (Pratt).. 



Egg-laying. — The egg of Ruralis betulae is of a pure white colour, 

 laid at the base of a branch of a small twig, just like the figure of 

 natural size given by Sepp (BescJi. Wond. Gods, iii., pi. xii), but quite 

 unlike his enlarged figure, still less like the curious pork-pie egg 

 (whence copied ?) in Hofmann's Larvae, etc. (Chapman). The eggs of 

 R. betulae are usually firmly attached to the main twigs of a blackthorn 

 bush, at the base of a smaller twig, thorn, or small excrescence. Of 

 some laid afterwards in confinement — August 27th-28th, 1895 — five 

 were placed on separate twigs, two on one twig a quarter of an inch 

 apart, whilst two others on another twig were in actual contact (Wood). 

 Gillmer notes (Insect en- B or se, xxiii., 1906, p. 42) : " In the forenoon 

 of October 4th, 1905, a rather rainy day on which the sun only shone 

 intermittently for about a quarter of an hour at a time, Yolker 

 observed, during one of the sunny periods, a female butterfly on an 

 isolated sloe-bush ; she walked in the special Theclid manner along a 

 twig from the top downwards, several times half opening the wings, 

 and each time stopping still a moment. This was exactly the 

 moment when the butterfly deposited an egg on the bark of the twig ; 



