The photograph in the previous post shows a female cabbage white butterfly escaping from the attentions of a pursuing male and if you look closely at that picture you can see that she's a well-worn individual with tattered wings.
This was even more apparent when she landed. Damage like this makes you wonder just how much wear-and-tear butterfly wings can sustain before the insect's ability to fly is seriously impaired.
As soon as she landed she returned to the serious business of egg-laying, although in this case her choice of location probably isn't a good one - she is laying her egg on a cabbage flower sepal, which will fall off in a couple of days, soon after the flower is pollinated and fertilised, so unless the egg has hatched by then it will end up on the ground.
Whenever the males harassed her the female cabbage white adopted this posture, with her abdomen raised at almost 90 degrees to her body. This is her signal that she has already mated and isn't available for mating again.
Here she is again, in her 'mate refusal posture', this time on a nasturtium Tropaeolum majus leaf.
A large white butterfly has laid a cluster of eggs on this leaf, in the bottom-right of the picture. One way of separately large whites and small (cabbage) whites is that the former lay their eggs in clusters whereas the latter lay their eggs singly and well spaced out on the leaf.
Male cabbage whites seemed to be confused by females that adopt this tail-up posture. They try to mate but can find no way of doing so; this suitor is laying on his side.
The males are quite relentless in their pursuit of reluctant females, but with no success.
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