The caterpillar is green, striped on each side with yellow; it feeds on the Bird's-foot Trefoil, and other leguminous plants.
The chrysalis is shown on [Plate I]. fig. 18, and in shape somewhat approaches that of the Orange-tip.
The butterfly appears in May and August, and though by no means a common or generally distributed insect, is found—and sometimes abundantly—in many localities throughout the country, as far north as Carlisle; some of these are here given. Woods in neighbourhood of Brighton, Horsham (Sussex), Dorchester, New Forest, Exeter, Epping, West Wickham Wood, Monkswood, Huntingdonshire, Plymouth, Wavendon, Worcester, Kent and Surrey, Teignmouth, Gloucestershire, Carlisle, Lake District, Leicester, Manchester, North Lancashire. Unknown in Scotland.
THE MARBLED WHITE BUTTERFLY. (Arge Galathea.)
([Plate V]. fig. 3.)
This highly interesting and elegant insect would, by the uninitiated, probably be classed among the last group of Butterflies—the Whites—from the similarity in its colours; but from all those it may be readily distinguished by having only four walking legs (instead of the six which all our other white butterflies possess),
and also by the eye-like spots most visible on the under side.
The colouring may be described as consisting of nearly equal quantities of black and creamy-white, or pale yellow, so arranged as to form a marbled pattern of great richness. This description applies to the upper surface; on the under, the pale tint very much preponderates, many of the black masses of the upper side being here reduced to mere lines.