222 THE YOUNG 



head light stone colour, covered, with short I 

 hairs, and very rough looking from small 

 warts. 



Pupa. — PI. i6, fig. ib. Suspended by 

 the tail to a blade of grass. Short, and 

 rather thick, the head flattened out, and | 

 forming two ears, Very pale green, or nearly f 

 white, in colour, with numerous black lines 

 and marks. 



Food Plants.— Various kinds of grass, j 

 Couch grass (Triticum repens). Annual Meadow 

 grass [Poa annua), and others. 



Times of Appearance.— The butterfly j 

 emerges from the chrysalis in June or July, 

 and the egg is laid on blades of grass during 

 July or August. The voting larva emerges in 

 about a fortnight, and feeds very slowly for 

 a while, retiring to hybernate among the I 

 grass stem-; near the ground. It may be 

 found again in May, or even in April, and 

 is full fed in June, remaining three or four 

 weeks in that state. 



Habitat. — Tithonus is generally distri- 

 buter! throughout England, but is not so 

 common either in Scotland or Ireland. It 

 has nor an extensive range abroad, occurring 

 only in the South and West of Europe. It 

 occurs in grassy places. 



Varieties.— Varieties of Tithonus are not 

 common, and none have been named. One | 

 of the most extraordinary aberrations is in | 

 the collection of Mr. Stevens. It is a female, 

 and of the usual colouration, except that the 

 dark border is replaced by one of pale drab, 

 into which, the pale fulvous of the centre 

 portion of the wing is gradually shaded. 

 Mr. Bond has a male with the fulvous por- 

 tion of all the wings changed to pale drab, j 

 and females of the same character are in 

 more than one collection. Mr . Bond's speci- 

 men was taken in the New Forest. 



Parasites. — I have heard of none as yet. 



Some larvae sent me this year by Miss ! 

 Hinchliffe, of [nstovv. North Devon, have 

 produced ichneumons that have spun 

 Microgaste r-\ook\ng cocoons. 



NATURALIST. 



THE MOLE . — ( Talpa Europcea.) 

 By J. Osborne. 

 In attempting to write an account of the 

 Common Mole I am afraid I have little 

 new to communicate, for it is an animil that 

 has been carefully studied by many natur- 

 alists, whose opportunities of observing it 

 have been far greater than mine. I have 

 never been able to dig up the ground so as 

 to examine their nest and galleries, but I 

 have been much interested in watching the 

 signs on the surface that showed where they 

 were and what they were, doing. The first 

 mole L ever saw was crossing a path in the 

 open part of a woo l. I ran to it, and 

 stopped it with my foot, that we might ex- 

 amine it, and though I scarcely pressed any 

 weight at all upon it. it was quite dead 

 when I lifted it up. The peculiar manner in 

 which its legs projected from the sides, the 

 bare skin of its scoop-like hands or fore paws 

 which appeared to be set on sideways ; the 

 strong pointed nails or claws ; the smallness of 

 its eyes, which I had some trouble to find ; 

 and the dense short hair, so closely set, all 

 struck me as being remarkably different 

 from other animals I had seen, but all of 

 which a little consideration showed were 

 exactly suited to its mode of life. It was 

 long before I caught another, and this also 

 was in a wood. After examining it carefully 

 I put it on the ground at my feet, and with- 

 out any attempt to get away from me, it 

 commenced to dig, which it seemed to do 

 with great ease and very quickly, the stiff 

 looking fore paws working with great rapid- 

 ity. I took it up once or twice again to 

 watch it further, but when it got about half 

 covered I found I could scarcely get it out 

 at all, its fore legs seemed to hold so 

 tenacionsly that, fearing to hurt it by pulling, 

 I let it go, and in a very few moments it had 

 vanished. Every time I put it on the ground 

 it commenced to dig just where it was. It 

 did not seem to move an inch, or ever think 

 it would be safer further from me. Its 

 instinct evidentlv taught that safety was 



