State Agricultural Society. 
541 
specimens marked identically in tliis manner, and others having a 
second spot on the fore wings, more faint and small, placed inside ot 
the sub-central one, which I know to be males and females of P. 
Ilapce. And we should expect hybrids of this species and oleracea 
would be marked in this faint manner. But it will be truly remark¬ 
able if genuine specimens of oleracea vary to present faint spots placed 
as they are either in Rapce or Protodice. 
This is currently termed the White Butterfly, which name dis¬ 
tinguishes it with sufficient clearness from all the other butterflies of 
the region in which it abounds. It was first scientifically named and 
described by Dr. Harris, in the Hew England Farmer, 1829, vol. 7, 
p. 402, Pontia oleracea or the pot-herb Pontia being the designa¬ 
tion he bestowed upon it; and under this name lie noticed it more or 
less fully in his subsequent publications; his discourse before the 
Mass. Horticult. Soc., 1832, p. 7; his report to the Legislature on the 
Insects of Mass, injurious to vegetation, 1841, p. 213 ; his paper on 
Lepidoptera, in Agassis Lake Superior, 1850, p. 386, where a figure 
of it is also given ; his Treatise on the Insects of Hew England, 1852, 
p. 233, and Flint’s edition of this treatise, 1S62, p. 269. Boisduval 
inserts it under the name Pieris oleracea , in his Species General des 
Lepidopteres, 1836, vol. 1, p. 518, and on the next page describes 
Pieris cruciferarum as a distinct species, as we have noticed above. 
Mr. Kirby in his Fauna of Horth America, published 1837, p. 2S8, 
alludes to Pontia oleracea by name in connection with his supposed 
species Pontia casta. 
It will be noticed that these authors disagree as to the generic name 
of this butterfly. Whilst Dr. Harris and Mr. Ivirby term it a Pontia 
Boisduval calls it a Pieris. The question thus arises, which of these 
names are we to adopt as being the correct name for our insect? This 
is a difficult point to determine, as will appear from a brief notice of 
the manner in which these names were introduced into the science 
and the posture in which this subject stands. 
These white butterflies pertain to a section of the old genus Papilio, 
which Linnseus fancifully designated Danai Candidi or the White 
Greeks. The Bavarian naturalist, Schrank, in the second volume of 
his Fauna, which was published in 1802, elevated this section to the 
rank of a distinct genus, to which he gave the name Pieris. Fabricius, 
at his death, left a manuscript revision of the order Lepidoptera, 
which it is to be regretted has never been published. A short abstract 
of the genera proposed in this manuscript was given by Illiger, in 
his Entomological Magazine, in the year 1807, the Danai Candidi 
