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CHAPTER OF VARIETIES. 



white : the wings were exceedingly broad for their length, and had a 

 waving motion during flight. After some time they settled on some 

 high trees, at some distance. They appeared to me to answer exactly 

 to the description of the black-billed auk, but was not the situation 

 extraordinary ? I have little doubt in my own mind, also, that two 

 bramblings which, I believe, are not known to breed in this country, 

 are now building in a large patch of furze in Hurst Wood. I watched 

 them so long, and observed them so accurately, that I hardly think I 

 could have been mistaken ; I saw the nest also, but they had not begun 

 to lay, and I was obliged to leave the neighbourhood, — Wm. Smith. 

 Enfield, May 4. 



Age of butterflies, moths, and beetles. — It has been said 

 of our butterflies, that the natural length of their existence amounts 

 to a whole year, because occasionally during the winter or spring, a 

 specimen is met with many months after the usual time of their first 

 appearance. None of those species which I have ever read of as 

 being captured so many months after their transformation into the 

 perfect state, I will venture to assert do naturally enjoy so long an 

 existence. I have seen it stated, as a positive fact, that the brim- 

 stone butterfly (Gonepteryx Rhamni) naturally lives a twelvemonth, 

 and how frequently do we read of the capture of other species, which 

 it would seem have existed five or six months longer than their usual 

 time. Such instances are not in accordance with their general habits, 

 but arise from accidental causes, such as the insect not having been able 

 to meet with a male and propagate its kind, which is one of the common- 

 est causes of the prolongation of life among insects, when nature supports 

 them seemingly with the hope that they may yet succeed in finding one. 

 Let any one who is desirous of being better informed upon this head, 

 take a male and female of the same species of butterfly, and place them 

 in a gauze-box, and in another box confine a virgin by herself. He will 

 find that the couple in the former box will breed, eggs will be laid, and 

 both will die at their natural time, but not so with the virgin — she will 

 live for months after, and this, by the way, it may be remarked, is 

 generally the case as regards other animals. It is from the results of 

 similar experiments, that I am warranted in so positively contradicting 

 the assertion, that some species naturally live through the winter and 

 spring, until they have spun out a twelvemonth's existence. 



Solitarius. 



[I know of no instance of butterflies breeding in confinement as here 

 stated. Editor.] 



