Trisects. 4904 



if these specimens had been on the wing the previous August and September, and 

 again brought out by the warmth of a March sun, I think most entomologists will 

 agree with me that their term of life must have been an unusually long one. I regret, 

 owing to my embarking a few days afterwards with my regiment for Gibraltar, I was 

 unable to visit the locality again to prove beyond doubt that they were to be taken 

 during the remainder of the month. The specimens which I took are now at Gibraltar 

 with the regimental baggage, to which station I am returning almost immediately, or 

 otherwise I should have had great pleasure in forwarding one for your inspection. — 

 Charles W. Watkins ; Clifton, October 1, 1855. 



Double-broodedness of Gonepteryx Rhamni. — I had no wish to say anything more 

 about G. Rhamni, but I seem almost compelled to reply to Mr. C. R. Bree (Zool. 4871), 

 and I may first remark that the question is not one of inference, but of fact. Mr. Bree 

 will often find himself in the wrong, if he infers because an insect which appears 

 at a certain period of the year is double-brooded, that another species, which appears 

 at the same time, must be so likewise : the most closely-allied species often differ in 

 this respect ; lake, for example, Harpalyce russaria and H. immanaria ; these two 

 species so nearly resemble each other, that it is sometimes rather difficult to separate 

 the numerous varieties of each ; yet the former is always double-brooded, while the 

 latter has only one brood in the year. According to Mr. Bree's argument, Anthocaris 

 Cardamines, which appears at the same time of the year as P. Rapae, P. Napi and 

 P. Brassicae, ought to be double-brooded, because these three species are so ; but, like 

 G. Rhamni, it is most certainly single-brooded. Mr. Bree asks whether insects which 

 hvbernate disappear directly they emerge from the pupae state, if the weather is warm. 

 I reply, that some species most certainly do so, without any reference to the state of 

 the weather, while others seem to continue on the wing in the autumn as long as the 

 weather is fine. To Mr. Bree's next question, whether the intei course between the 

 sexes takes place in the autumn or in the spring — I answer, invariably in the spring, 

 when both sexes hybernate, as is the case with the Lepidoptera. Mr. Bree's last 

 sentences rather astonish me : he says, " Depend upon it that hybernation of the imago 

 is an accidental or casual occurrence. It is opposed to the whole scheme of insect- 

 life." Surely there is some mistake here, as I thought every entomologist was aware 

 that numbers of species invariably pass the winter in the perfect state, and reappear and 

 deposit their eggs in the spring. Having now replied to Mr. Bree's queries, I cannot 

 conclude without saying that Mr. Stainton's statement, that no living British ento- 

 mologist had been observant enough to have noticed the transformations of G. Rhamni, 

 is a libel upon his fellow-labourers in Science. That some persons who profess to have 

 a thorough knowledge of the transformations of the minute tribes are profoundly 

 ignorant of the economy of the larger Lepidoptera, I can readily believe ; but all have 

 not begun at the wrong end. With regard to the first species in our catalogues, 

 Papilio Machaon, I may just remark that I believe we have only one brood in a 

 season: the perfect insects begin to appear in May, and keep coming out all the 

 summer from pupae of the preceding season. Last year I had about a hundred pupa? 

 in the same cage ; the first butterflies appeared at the end of May, and the last in the 

 first week of September : I have had numbers of larvae at different times, but never 

 reared a butterfly from them the same season. Argynnis Selene and A. Euphrosyne 

 abound here, but I never saw an autumnal specimen, and I rather doubt their being 

 regularly double-brooded on the Continent. I am aware that in some seasons a few 

 specimens occur in August and September, but I believe these are merely individuals 

 XIII. 3 B 



