form his aerial excursions ; and in these, ascends to a much greater elevation 

 than any other insect I have ever seen, sometimes mounting higher than the 

 eye can follow, especially if he happens to quarrel with another Emperor, the 

 monarch of some neighbouring oak : they never meet without a battle, flying 

 upwards all the while, and combating with each other as much as possible ; 

 after which they will frequently return again to the identical sprigs from 

 whence they ascended. The wings of this fine species are of a stronger tex- 

 ture than those of any other in Britain, and more calculated for that gay and 

 powerful flight which is so much admired by entomologists. The Purple 

 Emperor commences his aerial movements from ten to twelve o'clock in the 

 morning, but does not perform his loftiest flights till noon, decreasing them 

 after this hour, until he quite ceases to fly, about four in the afternoon : thus 

 emulating the motions of that source of all his strength — the sun. The 

 females, like those of many other species, are very rarely seen on the wing : 

 the reason of which is both interesting and but little known. It is their 

 being destitute of a certain spiral socket, which the males possess near the 

 base of the main tendon of their upper wings ; which socket receives and 

 works a strong elastic spring, arising from the base of the under wings, thereby 

 enabling them to perform a stronger, longer, and more easy flight than it is 

 possible for the females to do. Moses Harris, I believe, was the first who 

 discovered and published figures of this socket and spring, in an ingenious 

 but little known work, called " An Essay preceding a Supplement to the 

 " Aurelian," wherein he tells us ' the females are not met with on the wing 

 so often as the males, some of which are very plentiful, but the females rare 

 to be seen, of which the Purple Emperor is one capital instance. 1 have 

 been informed Mr. Whitwortth caught thirteen in one day, and but one 

 female amongst them/ Harris, in the above essay, has divided the genus 

 Papilio ingeniously enough into sections or families, from the number and 

 position of the tendons in the wings, in a manner somewhat like that of 

 my friend Jones in the first volume of Linn. Transactions. In the same vol- 

 ume is a further and fuller account of the socket and spring, by Esprit 

 Giorna, of Turin. 



In the first volume of the " Entomologist/' published in 1 842, Mr. Hewit- 

 son writes, " During the months of June and July, 1839, which, though at 

 home very wet and unfavourable to Entomology, were on the Continent dry, 

 hot, and sunny; I spent most of my time in the forests, which border the 

 town of Kissingen in Bavaria, and had an excellent opportunity of observing 

 the habits of the butterflies, with which the woods abound. Amongst them 

 none were more conspicious, and few more abundant than the Purple Emperor. 

 At the end of a long and very rapid flight, at the outskirts of the wood, the 



