The greater number of the _caterpillars_ and _chrysalides_, however, being rarely met with, the figures on the first plate are nearly all borrowed from the splendid and accurate works of Continental authors--chiefly from Hübner and Duponchel. With great pleasure, the author here acknowledges his obligations, for many biographical facts relating to butterflies, to those highly useful periodicals, the _Zoologist_ and the _Entomologist's Weekly Intelligencer_, the former devoted to general natural history, the latter especially to entomology, and whose pages register a {vii} mass of interesting and original communications from correspondents who, living in wide-spread localities, and possessing varied opportunities of observation, have gradually brought together, under able editorship, a store of facts that could never have come within the _personal_ experience of any one man, however industrious and observant. The capture during the past year of a new and interesting butterfly for the first time in this country, is recorded in this volume, in which the insect is also figured and described. BAYSWATER, _April 1860_. * * * * * {1} BRITISH BUTTERFLIES. CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION. WHAT IS A BUTTERFLY--BUTTERFLIES AND MOTHS--BUTTERFLY LIFE--THE EGG STAGE--SCULPTURED CRADLES--BUTTERFLY BOTANY--THE CATERPILLAR STAGE--FEEDING UP--COAT CHANGING--FORMS OF CATERPILLARS--THE CHRYSALIS--MEANING OF PUPA, CHRYSALIS, AND AURELIA--FORMS OF CHRYSALIDES--DIFFICULTIES OF TRANSFORMATION--INFLUENCE OF TEMPERATURE. Occasionally a missive arrives from some benevolent friend, announcing the capture of a "splendid butterfly," which, imprisoned under a tumbler, awaits one's acceptance as an addition to the cabinet. However, on going to claim the proffered prize, the expected "_butterfly_" turns out to be some bright-coloured _moth_ (a Tiger moth being the favourite victim of the misnomer), and one's entomological propriety suffers a shock; not so much feeling the loss of the specimen, as concern for the benighted state of an otherwise intelligent friend's mind with regard to insect nomenclature. {2} It is clearly therefore _not_ so superfluous as it might at first otherwise seem, to commence the subject by defining even such a familiar object as a _butterfly_, and more especially distinguishing it with certainty from a _moth_, the only other creature with which it can well be confounded.