40 
PROCEEDINGS OF THE VICTORIA INSTITUTE. 
Monday, 4tii December, 1893. 
Sylvester Demnish , ALA., Vice-President , in the Chair. 
The following ]3aper was read : 
NOTES ON THE STUDY OF BUTTERFLIES. 
By Beaven Rake, M.D. 
The object, as I understand it, of the pajDers which are read 
at the Victoria Institute on the first Monday in each month is 
not so much to present any comprehensive or systematic view of 
a subject, as to suggest a few thoughts or relate a few facts or 
observations which may provoke discussion. [ must therefore 
ask the indulgence of any entomologists who may be present 
if my remarks to night appear somewhat threadbare and 
fragmentary. 
Butterflies have always been loved by the painter and the 
poet, and to the Naturalist and Scientist they are especially 
interesting from the illustration they afford of various natural 
laws. Thus the same species may be widely distributed over the 
earth s surface, showing only slight variations brought about by 
differences of climate, of soil or of food material. 
In the Himalayas I noticed that among the commonest 
butterflies were the Clouded Yellowand the Painted Lady, insects 
which I had last seen on the Hampshire downs. I was also 
agreeably surprised one day by a member of the beautiful genus 
Parnassius , which took me back to a ramble through one of the 
Norwegian valleys, when Parnassius Apollo was one of the insects 
recorded in my note book. Only a few weeks ago near Chicago 
I noticed a Danais which evidently came very near our Trinidad 
species, and flying over the falls at Niagara was a specimen of 
the Camberwell Beauty, esteemed such a rarity in England. 
Charles Kingsley, in one of those short essays which he knew 
so well how to write, calls attention to the relation between 
geological formation and certain rare plants, thus explaining 
theii apparently erratic distribution in the British Isles, His 
