www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

Just wondered if anyone ever, like me and other companions of childhood used the sweeping category 'French Butterflies' to describe anything more colourful and exotic than the 'Cabbage-Whites' we used to throw our coats over to catch and keep for an hour or so.
See : http://www.flickr.com/photos/15087852@N00/4178757821/

Nope, never heard that one, Mike! I was at school in the seventies, in Suffolk, and though a handful of friends were interested in butterflies, no one used that name. Most non-lepidopterists called anything that wasn't a white or yellow a 'red admiral'. I well remember explaining to a kid in the class above me during a school boxing competition that the small tortoiseshell trying to get out of the gym was that, and not a red admiral. Luckily he had boxing gloves on.

Guy

padfield wrote: I well remember explaining to a kid in the class above me during a school boxing competition that the small tortoiseshell trying to get out of the gym was that, and not a red admiral. Luckily he had boxing gloves on.

Guy

were they, like, really small boxing gloves ?

C

Guy