A BUTTKKFLY HOLIDAY IX GREAT BRITAIN. 217 



A Butterfly Holiday in Great Britain. bO ^-^-^^ 



By GEOKGE WHEELER, M.A., F.Z.S., F.E.S.". , ., .,(<>■ 



It is possible that some sense of shame ought to acconJpi 



admission of a " butterfly holiday " this year, but the combination o 

 about half the \York of a Central London Parish with the Secretaryship 

 of the Entomological Society (to say nothing of other occupations), 

 does render a holiday, even in Avar time, a somewhat pressing necessity, 

 and finding it of course impossible to spend that holiday abroad, I made 

 up my mind to utilize it entomologically by seeking some of those 

 forms which are peculiar to our island, in particular the Cornish 

 Li/cat'iui arinn, Vlebeins art/iiK. [ai'ijon) var. i)iassei/i, and the Durham 

 and Scotch forms of Aricia viedon. I hoped also to obtain the typical 

 P. axjiis [ai'iion) and the var, crctacea, so as to have the opportunity of 

 comparing these three forms in a fairly long series, and in addition I 

 had some expectation of acquiring British forms of (_'(H'7ii>)ii/iii/)ha tiplmn 

 and l\rebia i'/)iphro)i. I had not, however, with one exception, a day 

 without rain, and the one exception only gave the variation of a fog so 

 thick that for most of the day it was impossible to see across the road; 

 whilst only once did I have as much as two hours of consecutive sun- 

 shine, and, though there was a little on nearly half the days, it was 

 generally confined to gleams of a few minutes' duration. 



Leaving London at 1 o'clock on Monday, July 5th, I reached Bude 

 soon after 7.30 in the evening, and here through a mistake of the 

 porter's T was carried oft" seven miles in the wrong direction, and landed 

 at a farm in Morwenstow. This was rather unfortunate, as the farm 

 for which I was bound was some two miles from another in w-hich 

 Mr. A. H. Jones and Mr. Earl were staying, and I knew they were 

 leaving on Wednesday morning, and further, there was a litttle sunshine 

 on Tuesday morning which we had to waste in our thirteen miles' 

 drive. An attempt to visit my friends on Tuesday evening was cut 

 short by torrents of rain, and I was left to my own devices to find a 

 ground for arion. Wednesday and Thursday were, with a short 

 interval on the latter day, hopeless for hunting, but I searched about 

 for likely spots. It was some time before I found any thyme at all, 

 and when at last I did so, there was no sign of the necessary ant- 

 hills, and I took nothing but Melanarf/ia (jalatea, Aji/iantnpus In/per- 

 a)itiis, a fine dark form of E/nnephele juitina, and a single specimen 

 of I lipparcliia seniele. On Friday morning a very welcome addition 

 was made in the form of a single fresh specimen of the second brood 

 of Lcptosia sinapi.^, my first experience of this species in England. As 

 the afternoon showed a promise of more sunshine, I started at about 

 l.HO p.m. for the farm in which my friends had been staying, and 

 where I knew they had met with some success. Within a quarter 

 of an hour of starting, however, I found myself in a steep field 

 full of ant hills all covered with thyme, so felt that if orion was 

 to be got anywhere in the neighbourhood I should hardly find a 

 more likely spot. In a few minutes I discovered that it was by 

 far the commonest thing in the field, though getting over, and I had 

 to let out at least as many as I kept. I succeeded, however, in the 

 hour or so that the sunshine (somewhat intermittently) lasted, in 

 acquiring a short series of a dozen specimens, mostly in fair, and one 



October 15th, 1915. 



