March 13. THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 445 
WEEKLY CALENDAR. 
D 
M 
D 
W 
Weather near London in 1853. 
Sun 
Sets. 
Moon 
II. & S. 
Moon’s 
Age. 
Clock 
af. Sun. 
Day of I 
Year. | 
MARCH 13—19, 1865. 
Barometer. 
Thermo. 
Wind. 
ltain in 
Inches. 
Rises. 
13 
To 
Necrophagus mortuorum. 
29.960—29.881 
64—43 
S.W. 
_ 
22 a 6 
58 a 5 
4 21 
25 
9 46 
72 
14 
w 
Staphylinus brunnipes. 
30.019—30.851 
64—27 
S.W. 
02 
19 
VI 
5 8 
26 
9 29 
73 
15 
Th 
Staphylinus Erythropterus. 
30.157—30.128 
67—44 
s. 
01 
17 
2 
5 43 
27 
9 12 
74 
lG 
F 
Staphylinus pubescens. 
30.231—30.070 
58—25 
S.W. 
01 
15 
3 
6 6 
28 
8 55 
7S 1 
17 
S 
St. Patrick. 
30.529—30.395 
53—25 
N. 
— 
13 
5 
6 25 
29 
8 38 
76 
18 
Sun 
4th, or Midlent Sunday. Prs. 
3O.2i2-29.957 
53—35 
S.W. 
19 
10 
7 
sets. 
© 
8 20 
77 
19 
M 
[Louisa b., 1848. 
30.141—29.907 
45—31 
E. 
15 
8 
8 
8 a 2 
1 
8 3 
M 
CD 
Meteorology of the Week.—A t Chiswick, from observations during the last twenty-eight years, the average highest and lowest tem- 
peratures of these days are 50.5°, and 34.1°, respectively. The greatest heat, 69°, occurred on the 19th, 
on the 13th, in 1845. During the period 128 days were fine, and on 68 rain fell. 
in 1836; 
and the lowest cold 13°, 
There is a book for each season, and a season for each 
book, and such a mutual fitness occurs between the 
spring of the year and Westwood’s Butterflies of Great 
Britain .* A new edition, in a more portable size, with 
better-coloured plates, and an introduction by the author, 
describing the general characteristics of the Butterfly, 
has just issued from the press. It is a beautiful volume, 
and one of the most appropriate and most useful of 
presents that we could suggest to be given to one fond 
of gardening and resident in the country. If a proof 
were wanting, it is now before us in a box containing a 
Butterfly caught in Sussex, on a sunny day in the first 
week of January, and the envelope of the box inscribed 
with these two queries—“ Is this the common Tortoise¬ 
shell Butterfly? and is it not uncommon to find it at 
such a season ? ” 
We will give the answer from the pages of Mr. West¬ 
wood’s book, extracting all that he says about this 
Butterfly, as a fair example of the book's contents:—• 
SPECIES 3.—VANESSA URTICJE. THE SMALL 
TORTOISE-SHELL BUTTERFLY. 
Synonymks.— Papilio Urticee, Linnaeus, Lewin Pap. pi. 3. Donovan 
Brit. Ins. vol. ii. pi. 55. Albin In*, pi. 4, f, 6. Wilkes Ins. pi. 107* 
Harris Aurelian, pi. 2, fig. i.—n. 
Vanessa Urticee, Fabricius, Ochsenkeimer, Stephens, Duncan Brit. 
Butt. pi. 19, fig. 1. 
Eugonia Urticee, Hiibner (Verz. bek. Schmett.) 
“ This very beautiful but most abundant species varies in 
the expanse of its wings from one-and-five-sixths to two-and- 
one-third inches. The wings above are of a rich orange 
colour; the anterior dark at the base, with three short broad 
costal bars, between which the ground-colour of the wings is 
paler; behind these are three unequal-sized round spots. 
The exterior margin of all the wings is black, with a row of 
blue lunules, and two pale slender parallel submarginal lines. 
The basal half of the hind wings is also black. Beneath, 
the orange colour is replaced by pale stone colour, and the 
two smaller posterior discoidal spots are wanting. The 
margins of all the wings on this side are freckled with 
brown, having a row of black lunules. Various varieties 
have been described and figured, in which the black spots 
are either more or less obliterated, or are enlarged, so as to 
become confluent. A fine individual of the latter kind is 
figured by the Rev. W. T. Bree, in the New Series of the 
Magazine of Nat. Hist. Suppl. pi. 15; and “Brit. Butt.,” 
pi. 13, fig. 13, in which the second and third costal black 
bars are united, whilst the two round discoidal spots are 
wanting; the hind wings are uniformly obscure. 
“ The caterpillars of this species are found on the common 
nettle in the beginning of June and the middle of August; 
they are gregarious in the early period of their lives, and 
are dusky coloured, varied with green and brown, with 
paler lines down the back and sides, and with the head 
black, the body beset with strong branched black spines. 
The chrysalis is brownish, with golden spots on the neck 
• “ The Butterflies of Great Britain.” By J. O. Westwood, Esq., F.L.S. 
W. S. Orr and Co., Paternoster Row, London. 
and sometimes entirely golden. This golden appearance 
(which suggested to the early naturalists the names of 
Chrysalis from the Greek, and Aurelia from the Latin, 
names for gold, and which is so conspicuous in the pupte of 
this and the other species of this genus) is owing simply 
to the shining white membrane immediately below the 
outer skin, which being of a transparent yellow, gives a 
golden tinge to the former. Its appearance, however, was 
seized upon by the alchemists as a natural argument in 
favour of the transmutation of metals; nor was it until the 
researches of Reaumur in France, and of Ray and Lister in 
England, that its real nature was discovered, the last-named 
author having imitated it by putting a small piece of black 
gall in a strong decoction of nettles ; this produces a scum, 
which, when left on cap-paper, will exquisitely gild it, with¬ 
out the application of the real metal. Reaumur also men¬ 
tions that, for producing this appearance, it is essential that 
the inner membrane of the chrysalis should be moist; 
whence may be explained the disappearance of the gilding 
so soon as the fluids within the body have been absorbed by 
the formation of the limbs of the butterfly (British Cyclop., 
art. Aurelia). 
“ The perfect insect is very abundant, and appears in the 
beginning of July and September, often surviving the 
winter, and coming abroad the first warm days, having been 
noticed in the Isle of Wight even so early as the 8th of 
January. It is distributed all over the kingdom, extending 
to the northern extremity of Scotland, in which country it is 
known under the name of the Devil’s or Witch’s Butterfly ! 
In the south of Europe it continues on the wing through 
the winter; and according to Mr. Brown (Mag. Nat. Hist., 
No. 9), it would appear that some of the specimens of this 
species hyberuate in Switzerland, and reappear in the 
spring. 
“Mr. Stephens possessed a most remarkable specimen of 
this species, now in the British Museum Collection, having 
five wings, the fifth of small size, being implanted on the 
disc of one of the hind wings, which it resembles in its 
markings. It was captured by Mr. Doubleday, near Epping.” 
Such an instance of the volume’s utility, however, 
gives but a faint notion of its value, and we must linger 
over it somewhat longer. 
The Greeks employed the Butterfly as an emblem of 
the soul, known to them as Psyche. They represented 
her with the wings of the Butterfly, and portraits of 
the dead were drawn by them with a Butterfly ascending 
from the lips. Nor would it be easy to employ a more 
beautiful or more appropriate simile than the soul 
escaping from its earthly dwelling as the Butterfly soars 
forth from its crysalis state. Nor is this the only image 
it suggests; and Swammerdam did not use language 
too strong when he said, that in the development of the 
Butterfly “ we see the resurrection painted before our 
eyes, and exemplified so as to be examined by our hands.” 
The authors of the “ Introduction to Entomology ” 
have well amplified this idea. “To see," say they, “a 
caterpillar crawling upon the earth, sustained by the 
No. CCCXXXVII. Vol XIII, 
