530 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



instance of passive mimicry ? A similar observation was com- 

 municated to Mr. Trimen by Mrs. Barber. She was impressed 

 by the behaviour of a male of the conspicuous butterfly, Papilio 

 cenea, which twice deliberately selected in her garden, as a resting 

 place during a shower of rain, a shrub whose pale yellow and brown 

 seeds and flowers entirely agreed with the colouring of the 

 under side of its wings.* Of butterflies belonging to the Tropical 

 American genus Siderone, Mr. Dent states : — " They always rest 

 with wings folded over their bodies on branchlets, the markings 

 and colouring of the under side of the wings resembling exactly 

 dry brown or yellow leaves."! Mr. Cornish has written: — 

 " Many of the small blue British butterflies have greyish spotted 

 backs to their wings. At night they fly regularly to sheltered 

 corners on the chalk downs where they live, alight head down- 

 wards on the tops of the grasses which there flourish, and, 

 closing and lowering their wings as far as possible, look exactly 

 like a seed-head on the grasses." X Mr. Carrington noticed 

 for several evenings that a large Wtiite Cabbage Butterfly (Pieris 

 brassicce) searched out a few " sportive " whitish or cream- 

 coloured leaves of a variety of ivy, and roosted upon one for the 

 night. § Mr. Trimen has observed the Satyrid butterfly Melanitis 

 leda, which " rests among dead leaves on the ground in shady 

 places, and is then indistinguishable from them"; and a parallel 

 case, and a similar effect, is produced by the female Eronia leda, 

 which settles on the faded bright yellow leaves of the Erythrina 

 tree." || Our well-known Orange-tip Butterfly (Euchloe carda- 

 mines), as observed by Mr. T. W. Wood towards evening or in 

 cloudy weather, may be found at rest on the tops of grass or 

 flowers, but more particularly on Anthriscus sylvestris, and almost 

 always near that plant ; the chequered white and green alone 

 visible when the insect is at rest assimilates with the white 

 flowers of the Anthriscus as seen against the green back- 

 ground. U Attention has recently been called to what appears to 



* ' S. African Butterflies,' vol. i. p. 34. f ' A Year in Brazil,' p. 384. 



I ' Animals of To-day,' p. 197. § ' Sci. Gossip,' new ser. vol. i. p. 10. 



|| Pres. Addr. to S. Afr. Philosoph. Soc. 1884, p. lxxiv. 



f ' Proc. Ent. Soc. Lond.' 3rd ser. vol. i. p. 147 (1863).— Mr. Wood stntes 

 that " it was remarkable also that the butterfly did not appear to be partial 

 to the Anthriscus, except as a secure resting place, but prefered to hover over 

 and suck the juices of the wild geranium and other flowers." 



