Abstract
IN connection with Mr. Pidgeon's communication, under the above heading, in NATURE of April 2, respecting the probable wintering of a tortoiseshell butterfly in a bath-room, I may state that the hybernation of butterflies is of well-established occurrence in at least certain portions of South Africa, where one species in particular, namely, Precis sesamus, Trimen, assembles in numbers at the end of the summer season for the purpose. This very distinct dingy blue and red insect is plentifully distributed in East Griqualand and Natal, especially affecting the road-cuttings between Ixopo and the Ingeli-Zuurberg mountain chain. As remarked in Mr. Roland Trimen's monograph on South African butterflies, it likes shady places under a roadside bank or rocks in a cutting; and Colonel Bowker—an enthusiastic and renowed South African lepidopterist—is quoted as having seen them congregated under rocks and in holes of dry banks, as many as twenty-nine being captured by placing the net over them. Their dark bronzy green under-colouring renders them, when thus massed, almost inconspicuous in association with withered fern, grass, &c., and it is only by startling them that one very often becomes aware of their presence. I particularly call to mind, while on one of my botanical rambles in the Lower Umzimkulu district of East Griqualand in 1885, accompanied by a younger son of Mr. Donald Strachan, unexpectedly flushing at least fifty of these butterflies in the cold frosty season of July, in a secluded glen of the Vubugas rivulet. Upon a iittle searching among the scrub and bush we discovered a boulder, under which there must have been as many again, if not more. These we roused out with branchlets, some being more torpid than others; but, as we retired from the spot, they all flitted back to their trysting-place. This was at the severest time of the season, and I never doubted, after having observed the massing of this butterfly at all times during the winter, that it emerged safe and strong in the ensuing spring. A description and coloured figure are given in Mr. Trimen's work, vol. i. p. 231, pl. iv. f. 3.
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TYSON, W. Butterflies and Hybernation. Nature 54, 125 (1896). https://doi.org/10.1038/054125b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/054125b0
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