Insects. 



259 



my first introduction to the insect, and I was much gratified by taking many speci- 

 mens from the 18th of August to the 1st of October, on which latter day I took a very 

 brilHant specimen, the last I saw for the season. I also observed the insect in still great- 

 er abundance the same year, on the opposite coast of Hampshire. It is only occasion- 

 ally that I have it in my power to speak from experience of the appearance of Colias 

 Edusa ; tor here in Warwickshire it seems to be an insect of great rarity : to the best 

 of my knowledge I never saw more than two examples of it in this county ; these oc- 

 curred September 16, 1808, and August 16, 1811. And I mention these dates, be- 

 cause, in those seasons when the insect does occur in this neighbourhood (where it 

 certainly seems to be a rare and merely accidental visitant), I think it may have been 

 abundant in the situations where it is more usually found. Who knows but our War- 

 wickshire clouded yellows so seldom seen may have strayed from a maritime county ? 

 I shall have great pleasure in forwarding the success of 'The Zoologist ' as far as lies 

 in my power, for its own sake, as I think it a most useful and interesting work, the dis- 

 continuance of which would, in my judgment, be a loss to the cause of Natural His- 

 tory, and to all those who love the fields and woods more than the jargon of science, 

 which latter, it strikes me, is carried to such an excess as rather to impede than ad- 

 vance the study of Nature. Here, in ' The Zoologist,' is a convenient receptacle for 

 all those facts and observations, which, but for such a periodical, would probably be 

 lost, or at least never recorded for the benefit of naturalists in general. — W. T. Bree ; 

 Allesley Rectory^ near Coventry, June 23, 1843. 



Note on the capture of Colias Hyale. I enclose you an accurate figure of a beau- 

 tiful variety of Colias Hyale, male, captured in August, 1842, by my friend, J. Havley 

 Esq. It was flying swiftly, on a very cloudy day, in a lane near Market-Harborough, 

 Leicestershire, and is now deposited in our cabinet of local insects, belonging to the 

 Literary and Philosophical Society's Museum. The chief difference from the figure 

 and description of a male C. Hyale, in the work of Messrs. Westwood and Humphreys, 

 consists in the uninterrupted band of rich sul- 

 phur that completely divides the broad, black, 

 apical margin of the fore wings, and the dis- 

 coidal spot being intensely black. The hind 

 wings are considerably rounder at the apex, — 

 more like C. Edusa, — with the margins very 

 faintly marked with black, and the discoidal 

 spot or spots being scarcely discernable. The 

 size is smaller than that usually given, and the 

 contour of the insect strikingly different from 

 the figure referred to. In an article by the 

 Rev. W. T. Bree (Mag. Nat. Hist. v. 330) on 

 several British Lepidoptera, there is mentioned a variety of C. Hyale which occurred 

 at Dover, — a whitish one ; this being the only description of any variation in the 

 markings or colour of this insect I have met with : and were it usual in the case of a 

 rare insect like C. Hyale, it would hardly have been unnoticed. It appears that by far 

 the greater number of specimens of this insect have been captured on or near the sea- 

 coast; indeed, the Rev. Mr. Bree says, — " C. Hyale appears to be a maritime fly, oc- 

 curring almost exclusively near the sea-coast : " so that it is not improbable that the 

 very rare specimens which are found in the midland counties, will bear such a differ- 

 ent and distinctive character in the markings, as to constitute perhaps a new species, 



s2 



Colias Hyale, var. 



