THE YOUNG NATURALIST. 



40T 



blunt and rounded. It is found in rivers and 

 canals, in various parts of England, but chieiiy ; 

 in the neighbourhood of London. 



Cornea — A much smaller shell, not ex- 

 ceeding a third of an inch in length ; the valves , 

 are thin and rounded, bluish-white inside, 1 

 yellowish-olive or horny on the outside, dull 

 and almost smooth ; the anterior side is con- ! 

 siderabl y shorter than the poster ior, the umboes 

 are rather rounded. This is abundant every- 

 where, in streams, canals and ponds. 



Pisidioides- — This is a rather doubtful 

 species, considered by some Conchologists to 1 

 be a variety of Cornea, compared with which 

 it is rather more distinctly striated, and the . 

 posterior side more sloping. It is found in the 

 Paddington canal. 



OvallS - A more oval shell than the others, 

 the posterior side rather the larger, it is smooth 

 except for the ridges indicating the stages of 

 growth : the interior is bluish-white, the 

 exterior yellowish-grey, rather pale. It may 

 be found in ponds and canals, but is not so 

 common as Cornea. 



LacustriS- — This is rather a small shell, 

 somewhat square in form, thin, and of a greyish , 

 color ; the umboes are nearly central, and have 

 a cup-shaped prominence upon them ; like 

 others of the genus, it is marked by the lines 

 which indicatet he stages of growth, it may 

 be found in lakes, ponds. &c. 



FINIS. 



j 



REPUTED BRITISH 



1 



BUTTERFLIES. 



REMARKS OX ARGYNNIS NIOBE. 



By C. S. Gregsox. 



I have been much pleased with reading your 

 remarks upon " Reputed British Butterflies " j 

 in this week's Young Naturalist, and ven- 

 tures to supplement it by saying that the 

 "Devil's Gallop," is an open rough piece of 

 waste land, with a public road through it, mostly 

 on th shore of Eastwaste water, between the 

 Windermere Ferry Hotel and Hawkshead. j 



where anyone may go and collect insects 

 at their leisure, though there is now some 

 doubt if anybody dare drink at the lake, a 

 person having claimed it as his property, and 

 who be to the man who dares to catch a 

 minnow in it. But the " Gallop," belongs to 

 a more liberal owner, and anybody may roam 

 at will. I write that this may be known to all, 

 hoping that some one will go there and take 

 Niobe, as I did, flying with Adippe. Your 

 diflerentation of the species is hardly up to 

 my ideas of the distinctive characters of the 

 three species named. The principal, and a 

 never failing distinction is, that whereas the 

 broad space above the second row of metallic 

 marks from the outer margin in Aglaia and 

 Adippe is always an empty space, often 

 suffused or dying away into the ground color 

 of the wing, whilst in Niobe this space is al- 

 ways filled in with rich patches of fulvous, 

 forming a semi-band-like series of markings, 

 the one next the abdomen being the largest 

 and somewhat lozinge shaped. The semi- 

 silvery marks under the fulvous patches often 

 shew as another faint broken row of metallic 

 marks, whilst in the variety Eris (on which 

 no metallic marks appear) these marks are 

 bright yellow below dying into the fulvous 

 patches. But a more saliant character in 

 Niobe var. Eris is the bright yellow spot in 

 the centre of which is a little dark dot. in the 

 discoidal cell under the first series of three 

 (often four) light patches. In very bright 

 specimens of Niobe (type) this spot is often a 

 silver mark without the dark centre. A trace 

 of this mark is sometimes seen in Adippe, but 

 it will not mislead any but very young natural- 

 ists. 



The numerals which people used to say were 

 1536, in the discoidal cell of the fore wings, 

 read more like 1376 to me in Adippe, Aglaia, 

 and Papliia. whilst in Niobe they appear more 

 like 1375. As a further inducement for our 

 young readers to go to " Gallop " next July, 

 I may say I took Adippe var. Chlorodippe there, 

 which ha? the uriderwings green from the 

 base to the red spots like Aglaia. 



