THE HABITS OF THESTOR BATXUS. 121 



Calhijihrijn rilhi after all. They darted about in the same headlon^}; 

 way, threw up their green undersides and became visible and invisible 

 at will, and escaped the net so frequently that one is almost inclined to 

 aver that they were here almost difficult to catch. This was especially 

 the case on the little rough blackthorn-covered waste that one finds in 

 the very earliest part of the journey, but, on the partially cleared slopes 

 opposite, the females were busy, apparently ovipositing, though I could 

 not find eggs, flying hither and thither, and had it not been that the 

 men who were mining on the slope occasionally blew up masses of rock 

 that fell about in a rather dangerous manner, one might have made a bag ; 

 but, further on, the species occurred on the rough patches between the 

 cultivated plots, almost the only remnants now of the ground that 

 years ago made this part of the Carqueiranne district famous in the 

 annals of lepidopterology. Still, all the way along, one found the 

 species here and there haunting the bushes, although, in a disused 

 quarry, it was dodging about Lyctt'nid-like on the herbage near the 

 ground, and falling an easy prey. What sort of a bag one could have 

 made I am not prepared to say, but I carried only a very small number 

 of boxes, and these were all filled long before noon, when I gave my 

 attention to other matters almost equally interesting. 



My last attack on Tht'stor ballus was on April 2nd. A dull morning 

 led me to the Costebelle quarries for a walk, the weather brightening but 

 little as I went along. I turned up the little road that leads to the 

 Mont des Oiseaux, past the famous quarries. The latter, no doubt owing 

 to the want of sun, drew blank, but, by the roadside, an occasional 

 example flew later in the gleams of sunshine with which alone we 

 were favoured, and, had it not been that I knew how necessary sun 

 is for the species, I should have said that the reputation of the quarries 

 was not altogether deserved. However, a spell of sunshine that lasted 

 some twenty minutes showed me that the species, having apparently 

 temporarily deserted its usual haunts, was rather numerous on a field 

 of peas in full blossom. Both sexes were there, flying apparently 

 about the blossoms ; but whether simply to feed or whether the peas 

 were considered suitable for eggiaying, which I very much doubt, I do 

 not know. At any rate the Thestor ballus in the pea field were the last 

 living specimens I saw in nature of this most interesting local little 

 species. 



On my visit to the Costebelle quarries I was fortunate in meeting 

 Mr. St. Quentin, a Yorkshire lepidopterist, with considerable know- 

 ledge of the Riviera butterflies, and, in a conversation later in the 

 afternoon, in the shop of Mr. Powell, he informed me that he had, at 

 Costebelle, marked two plants of Lotus liisiiidus, on which, a day or 

 two before, he had, he was sure, observed a 2 T. ballus ovipositing, and, 

 on my stating that a description of the agg was at present a great 

 desideratum, he kindly volunteered to examine the plants, and, if 

 successful in finding the eggs, to bring them to Hyeres. Accordingly 

 next afternoon he met me at Mr. Powell's with the plants carefully 

 potted, and it says as mnch for the skill with which the female hides 

 her eggs, as for the acumen of Mr. St. Quentin in detecting them, when 

 I state that, although the position of the leaves on which the eggs 

 were placed was marked by small pieces of stick, it took me some 

 minutes to find them. Mr. Powell was good enough to lend me his 



