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Unless the Pieris has an innate power of discrimination to guide her, it is impossible to understand the great extent of her vegetable realm. She needs for her family Cruciferae, nothing but Cruciferae; and she knows this group of plants to perfection. I have been an enthusiastic botanist for half a century and more.
Among my insects the best were the rare Pieris arum, of a rich chrome yellow colour, with a black border and remarkable white antenna perhaps the very finest butterfly of the genus; and a large black wasp-like insect, with immense jaws like a stag-beetle, which has been named Megachile Pluto by Mr. B. Smith.
A few tender morsels, in the shape of very young Grasshoppers, are readily accepted. Unfortunately, such windfalls do not often find their way into my sweeping-net. Abstinence becomes obligatory until the arrival of the first Butterflies. Henceforth, Pieris brassicae, the White Cabbage Butterfly, will contribute the greater portion of the victuals.
You ask what I think about the gay-coloured females of Pieris: I believe I quite follow you in believing that the colours are wholly due to mimicry; and I further believe that the male is not brilliant from not having received through inheritance colour from the female, and from not himself having varied; in short, that he has not been influenced by Selection.
Again, the females of Colias edusa and hyale have "orange or yellow spots on the black marginal border, represented in the males only by thin streaks"; and in Pieris it is the females which "are ornamented with black spots on the fore-wings, and these are only partially present in the males."
Besides, she is a most delicate poet, of whom I may say, as ANTIPATER Sidonius writeth of SAPPHO: Dulcia Mnemosyne demirans carmina Sapphus, Quaesivit decima Pieris unde foret. As in former times, two great Cardinals, BEMBA and BIENA did countenance poets: so of late years, two great Preachers, have given them their right hands in fellowship; BEZA and MELANCTHON.
On reaching home he found that he had parted with specimens of the rare Bath White, Pieris daplidice, for some quite common butterflies. The Bath White is not recognized as a British species, Newman supposing the specimens taken in this country to have been blown over or migrated from the northern coast of France, as they have been rarely met with away from the shores of Kent and Sussex.
A., on variation in the skulls of the natives of America. Meinecke, on the numerical proportion of the sexes in butterflies. Melanesians, decrease of. Meldola, Mr., colours and marriage flight of Colias and Pieris. Meliphagidae, Australian, nidification of. Melita, secondary sexual characters of. Meloe, difference of colour in the sexes of a species of. Memnon, young.
Nevertheless, to discover if this or that plant, new to me, is or is not one of the Cruciferae, in the absence of flowers and fruits I should have more faith in the Butterfly's statements than in all the learned records of the books. Where science is apt to make mistakes instinct is infallible. The Pieris has two families a year: one in April and May, the other in September.
Let loose in the wire cage, the Pieris is regarded as excellent game. The Empusa lies in wait for her, seizes her, but releases her at once, lacking the strength to overpower her. The Butterfly's great wings, beating the air, give her shock after shock and compel her to let go. I come to the weakling's assistance and cut the wings of her prey with my scissors.
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