472 Insects. 



rennial theory. There is a favourite resort of this insect, where I was informed by a 

 friend that they were plentiful in 1839, about half a mile from my residence. In the 

 following season of 1840, I did not meet with a single specimen. In 1841, though I 

 went almost daily in search of them, about the same locality, and in many other pla- 

 ces, during the season, with considerable anxiety and most laudable perseverance, I 

 found only two weather-beaten specimens. In 1842 not a single individual appeared, 

 neither do I believe that it was met with in any part of the kingdom. This year, my 

 vast anxiety to secure some splendid specimens of this charming butterfly, and all my 

 patience and perseverance in the previous years' most fruitless search for it, were des- 

 tined to receive their full reward. The males first made their appearance with us on 

 the 2nd of September, the females about four days later ; and they were abundant 

 when I left the island a week after. They were equally so on the other side the water; 

 a friend of mine captured about thirty specimens near Alverstoke, the last pair so late 

 as October 14, and also saw several times, but did not secure, a remarkable variety, 

 having the ground colour of one of the anterior wings white instead of orange, the other 

 three being of the ordinary hue. I noticed them on my route to Brighton, near Cash- 

 am, Chichester and Arundel, flying up and down by the side of the road. But by far 

 the largest proportion were in the neighbourhood of Brighton. Between that place 

 and Rottingdeane especially, they were in great profusion, and had I been disposed, I 

 could have taken above a hundred with the greatest ease. They were by far the com- 

 monest butterfly of that season of the year, appearing even on the beach, and in front 

 of the houses on the Marine Parade. There were a few of the pale variety with them. 

 J. F. Dawson ; Ventnor, Isle of Wight, December, 1843. 



Note on Colias Edusa, var. Helice. Mr. Jordan (Zool. 396), speaking of the beau- 

 tiful white variety of the female Colias Edusa (sometimes raised to the rank of a spe- 

 cies by the name of C. Helice), asks whether "it ever occurs in the male insect ? " I 

 believe I may safely reply that it never does. And this, I may observe, affords a strong 

 argument in addition to others, that C. Helice is a variety only, not a species; since 

 in most butterflies the females are far less abundant than the males. As far as my 

 own experience goes, I should say in the particular instance of C. Edusa, that the 

 males are as ten or twelve to one female, or, perhaps, even in still greater proportion. 

 The only time I ever had the pleasure of seeing C. Helice alive and capturing it, I 

 had all but demonstration of its identity with Edusa, as a union was about to take place 

 with a male of that species, had it not been for my interference, (Mag. Nat. Hist. v. 

 332.) It is stated in Humphreys' ' British Butterflies,' under the article C. Helice, 

 that " no corresponding variety of the male has yet been observed." Mr. Jordan re- 

 cords the capture of C. Edusa on the 4th of November, which is certainly very late for 

 its appearance ; and from this circumstance he argues with much probability, that " if 

 it could remain unscathed " through such an October as that of 1843, " it appears to 

 prove that the insect may sometimes hybernate.'' I have always understood, though 

 unable to state exactly on what authority, that the species does hibernate and re-ap- 

 pear in the early spring. Haworth, an accurate observer in such matters, says in his 

 ' Lepidoptera Britannica," " Femina [Colias Edusa] vivit per hyemem, et ova tempo- 

 re vernali ponit." But whether this remark is the result of his own experience, or bor- 

 rowed from other and perhaps continental authors, does not appear. The only way, as 

 it seems to me, of escaping the conclusion at which Mr. Jordan arrives, is by suppos- 

 ing that his example captured November 4th, " in very good condition," was a late- 

 bred specimen, which had come from the chrysalis after the cold weather of October. 

 W. T. Bree ; Allesley Rectory, January, 1844. 



