Abstract
EVEN your varied correspondence from all parts of the world has rarely furnished us with such a wonderfully complete and interesting personal observation as that of Mr. Sydney B. J. Skertchly (NATURE, vol. xx. p. 266) on the West African breeding grounds of Vanessa cardui, and the almost mechanical impulse and simultaneity with which such a swarm as that which he describes free themselves from the pupa-case and set forth on their migration. Can any one throw a similar light on the periodicity of Colias edusa? V. cardui is a more constant insect in this neighbourhood than any other with which I am acquainted; but the numbers in June of this year were quite unusual. Also we remarked that they were very high-coloured and vigorous, unlike the ordinary washed-out hybernated specimens of early summer. As one of your correspondents has remarked of his neighbourhood, so here C. edusa swarmed in 1877. It was the prevailing insect. In 1878 we had hardly a solitary example. The so-called C. helice—the pale variety of C. edusa—was frequent in 1877. I saw none of C. hyale; indeed, have never seen that insect here.
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CECIL, H. Butterfly Swarms. Nature 20, 291 (1879). https://doi.org/10.1038/020291c0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/020291c0
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