152- THE YOUNG NATURALIST. 



(Callimorpha dominula), and my father of the Cream Spot Tiger {Arclia 

 villica.) Luckily the specimen was a female, the eggs were collected and 

 hatched, and the caterpillars reared, and the result was a brood of Cream Spot 

 Tigers, with not a single variety among them. The offspring of a species 

 that had reached the extreme limits of variation reverted at a bound to its 

 original form. " And until this plan is followed in all doubtful cases, 

 and until we find out that one so-called species, such as Acronycta 

 tridens, or Cidaria mssata, or Peronea cristana, produces specimens of 

 another so-called or allied species such as Acronycta psi, or Cidaria immanata, 

 or Peronea kastiana, or that the intermediate forms produce one or the other 

 indifferently ; we are not really in a position to say, in such cases, how much 

 is due to common derivation, and how much, as in the case of pseudo-morph 

 crystals, to the accidental circumstances of external resemblance." What we 

 do know is — that heat and sunshine, cold and cloud, produce richness or 

 dullness of colour ; and that certain species vary, according to the geological 

 formation of the soil, and the chemical properties of the food-plant. 

 Glanvilks Wootton, Sherbum, Dorset. 



ARE BUTTERFLIES DISAPPEARING EROM THE 

 BRITISH ISLES. 



By C. W. DALE. 



I certainly agree with Mr. Decie in attributing the main cause of all per- 

 manent disappearances to man ; but will go further. Is not man filling the 

 atmosphere of England with smoke ? An eminent fern collector, IVlr. George 

 Wallaston, tells me that many ferns cannot live in certain parts of England. 

 I have recently returned from Belgium, where Baron De. Selys Longchamp 

 tells me that two species of butterflies, Melitcea maturna and Vanessa levana, 

 have disappeared during his remembrance. Belgium possesses just one hun- 

 dred butterflies, England sixty-four, Scotland thirty-six, and Ireland thirty- 

 nine. I will now give a list of a few species which have disappeared from 

 the County of Dorset : — Papilio machaon in 1816 ; Aporia cratcegi in 1815 ; 

 Vanessa c-album in 1816, to this species my father has added in his diary — 

 "saw one in 1836" ; Lycczna acis in 1839, this used to be even more com- 

 mon that L. alexis. Not only butterflies but also dragon-flies are becoming 

 scarcer in the British Isles. 

 Glanvilles Wootton. 



