Volume 10, Plate X / Entomology (Insects)

Orange-Tip & Wood White Butterflies

Pontia Cardoamines & Leucophasia Sinapis

1. & 2. Orange-Tip Butterfly. Common throughout Britain, this delicate species has white fore wings tipped with black, the male bearing a bright orange patch wholly wanting in the female, while the under wings are marbled with green. Its green, white-lined caterpillar feeds on cardamine and other crucifers, and the butterfly enlivens lanes, woodland glades, and gardens from late May, sometimes by mid-April in the south.
3. Wood White Butterfly. Smallest of our white butterflies, its very narrow, almost oval wings give it something of the look of a dragon-fly; the colour is nearly milk-white with a brown fore-wing spot. Its green caterpillar, lined with deep yellow, feeds on bird’s-foot trefoil and meadow vetchling, and the fly, abundant abroad, is rather scarce in Britain though locally plentiful in certain woods.