370 BRITISH BUTTERFLIES. 



it would be a common British insect, and our two species of gorse, with 

 herbaceous Papilionaceae, would carry it easily through our summer. 

 My view is that L. boeticus is continuously-brooded, like Colias edusa or 

 Pyrameis cardui, but can, even less than these species, stand a real 

 winter in any stage. As directly negativing Milliere's hypothesis, for 

 the wintering of the eggs is clearly a hypothesis and not in any way a 

 record of observation, I found at Guethary (near Biarritz) eggs of 

 L. boeticus newly-laid on Ulex nanus on July 5th ; and I took a slightly 

 worn female on the same day. It is clear that this female, and the one 

 that laid the eggs, had not fed in pods of Colutea. It had probably 

 emerged from the pupa in mid-June. But whether at Guethary or 

 somewhere further south, is open to considerable doubt. The larva 

 feeds up in hot weather with lightning rapidity, and the pupal stage 

 may be as short as Milliere states, and there may be, therefore, several 

 broods in the summer, probably at the rate of a dozen a year, in 

 suitable African localities. In a good locality, and season, it therefore 

 multiplies rapidly, and, no doubt, distributes itself abundantly by migra- 

 tion, passing often from inland stations, too dry in summer to have 

 flowers, to cooler coast localities, leaving these again in winter. Not 

 that there is an organised migration, but simply that abundantly 

 multiplied individuals scatter in all directions and sufficient manage to 

 reach suitable districts. The larva will eat leaves of Adenocarpus, and 

 the green, I can hardly say foliage, of gorse, but not with relish, so that 

 I think it is very possible that a generation might very well live 

 through the winter at Vigo, or even Biarritz, no matter what stage it 

 were in, but taking three or four months, instead of three or four weeks, 

 to complete their changes, and no doubt many perishing, but enough 

 would get through to make a start the following spring, winter 

 finding the species at all stages, so there would be all stages all through 

 winter, except that the earlier stages would probably not be regularly 

 replenished by fresh egglaying. Imagines, however, that died off, 

 would be replaced by fresh emergences, and there would be enough 

 of these in the early days of spring to start a few broods. My early 

 July female at Guethary was probably one of such a brood. Whether 

 they failed to get through the winter or not, they would be replenished 

 by immigrants from further south. My hypothesis, for it is after all 

 nearly as much a hypothesis as Milliere's, is that, south enough, the 

 species is continuously-brooded all the year round. In the north (e.g., 

 northern France, England, etc.) it perishes every winter, even if it gets a 

 footing in summer, but, in many localities between, and I think Vigo 

 is probably such a place, it is also continuously-brooded all the year 

 round, but the winter individuals progress very slowly compared with 

 the summer broods, and suffer largely owing to undesirable or actual 

 lack of food, much more than to climatic rigours, but they nowhere 

 hybernate in any stage, in the sense of actual suspension of activity 

 during the winter." 



Habitats. — The real home of this species extends practically 

 throughout the whole of the tropical and subtropical areas of the Old 

 World. In these districts it is continuously-brooded and generally 

 distributed. It appears to occur throughout Equatorial Africa, being 

 observed at Wadelai, etc. (Sykes, Ent., xxxvi., p. 6), throughout 

 Nigeria, at Jebba, Babba, Boussa, etc. (Christy teste Sharp, Ent., xxv., 

 p. 102), on the Anambara Creek, flowing into the Niger river just 



