596 BUTTERFLY. | 
lightly from flower to flower; and, though consi- 
derably smaller than the large tortoise-shell but- 
terfly, closely resembles that species in appearance. 
—The red admiral, Vanessa atalanta, is very com- 
mon in all parts of Britain, and most other parts 
of EKurope. Its wings have a velvetty-black col- 
our, belted with red, and variegated with white 
and blue. Its caterpillar has a greenish-colour, 
with a longitudinal line of yellow spots; and it 
feeds on the nettle-—The peacock’s-eye butterfly, 
Vanessa 10, is also very common. Its colour isa 
dark brownish or purplish red ; and on the upper 
surface of each wing, is a dark eye-like spot.— 
The common copper butterfly, Lycena phleas, is 
pretty common throughout Britain and most of 
continental Europe, and occurs also in Asia and 
North America. It appears in June, July, and 
August. Its colour is variable; but, in general, 
that of the upper wings is richly coppery, spotted 
and broadly margined with black.—The great 
fritillary, or silver-washed fritillary, Argynnis 
paphia, occurs in most districts of Britain, and 
appears about the sides of woods in June. Its 
wings are of a bright orange-brown colour, and 
have several black marks near their centre, and 
three rows of black spots along their border. Its 
caterpillar has a tawny colour, with hairy spires, 
and a yellow dorsal line; and feeds on the nettle, 
the dog violet, and some other plants.—The sil- 
ver-studded blue butterfly, Polyommatus argus, 
is not uncommon in the southern and midland 
districts of England, and appears in June, flut- 
tering over clover-fields and broomy pastures. 
The wings of the male have a deep blue colour, 
edged with white; and those of the female have 
a dull brownish-black colour. Its caterpillar 
_ feeds on the broom.—The small heath butterfly, 
Hipparchia pamphilus, is common on grassy 
hills, and upland pastures, and dry moors in 
every district of Britain. The upper surface of 
its wings has an ochreous or pale-orange colour, 
and is fringed with long white hairs; the under- 
surface of the fore-wings is clouded with ashy 
colour, and has near the tip an ocellated black 
spot with a white centre; and the under-surface 
of the hinder wings is clouded with grey and 
greenish brown, and has two or three obscure 
ocellated spots.—The Glanville fritillary, Melitea 
cinxia, 1s rare in England, and occurs on the Isle 
of Wight and the hills of the southern sea-board. 
Its colour is orange-red, marbled and spotted 
with black and yellow; but that of its cater- 
| pillar is black, dotted with white—The Duke 
of Burgundy fritillary, Vemeobius lucina, occurs 
principally in the south-eastern counties of Eng- 
| land, and usually appears about the middle of 
May. Its wings have a dark-brown colour; and 
the upper pair are marked with three transverse 
bars of irregular yellowish spots. 
Butterflies themselves, or the insects in their 
imago state, do no harm to vegetation, either 
| using no food whatever, or merely sharing the re- 
past of the bee from the nectaries of flowers ; and 
hence both farmer and gardener may admire their 
beauty, and observe their flights, without other 
care respecting them than to prevent, in all the 
mischievous species, the depositing of their eggs, 
The caterpillars of all the kinds noticed in the 
preceding long paragraph feed on living plants; 
but, in some instances, the plants which they 
select are mere weeds, and, in others, they sel- 
dom suffer sufficient injury to occasion any con- 
siderable or almost perceptible loss to cultivators. 
Yet the species of the genus Hipparchia may 
probably be regarded by some farmers as an ex- 
ception, for they feed on the most valuable of 
our pasture-grasses ; and they appear every year 
in such numbers, and occasionally in such vast 
swarms, as necessarily to consume a considerable 
portion of prime and nutritive herbage. The 
caterpillars of the first six species which we 
named, however, are so general and mighty foes 
as to require for their respective butterflies a 
somewhat extended notice. 
The common cabbage butterfly, Pontia brassice, 
is the type, and the largest species, of all the gar- 
den white butterflies. The club of its antennze 
is abrupt, compressed, and obconic; the terminal 
joint of its palpi is longer than either of the two 
preceding joints ; the claws of its legs are slightly 
forked ; the upper surface of its wings is white, 
with a large patch of black; and the wings of 
each of the sexes have some additional and char- 
acteristic markings, chiefly in black. Its eggs 
have a bright yellow colour, and a somewhat 
conical shape, with raised, granular, longitudinal 
ribs, connected by elevated cross lines; and they 
are deposited by the butterfly, in a thick cluster, 
on the leaves of the numerous varieties and sub- 
varieties of brassica oleracea, and sometimes, 
though rarely, on the leaves of the turnip. The 
caterpillar—one of the most popularly known of 
all the British larvae—has a bluish-green colour, 
with a narrow line of yellow along the back, and 
another along each side of the belly; and its 
body is pretty thickly studded with black tuber- 
cular points, each with a hair in its centre. So 
destructive is this caterpillar that the outer 
leaves of many brassica plants in almost every 
garden may be seen pierced, and riddled, and 
eaten away by it; and not only are these ren- 
dered useless for the coarse economical purposes 
to which they might be applied, but the interior 
or culinary parts of the plants, especially in the 
case of cauliflower and broccoli, is seriously 
though indirectly injured. A net spread over 
the plants would prevent the deposition of the 
eggs by the butterfly; and hand-picking is the 
most effectual method of removing the cater- 
pillars. The chrysalis has a pale green colour, 
spotted with black, and is attached by the tail, 
and a silken band round the middle. But a hy- 
menopterous parasite, Microgaster glomeratus, de- 
stroys many of the caterpillars by depositing its 
eggs in them, and prevents their transformation 
into chrysalides. The larve: of this parasite feed 
