LEPIDOPTERA FROM NORMANDY. 313 



foot of a rough hill at Mesneuf. The field is now under cultivation, 

 and the locality destroyed. 



M. parthenie is generally smaller, of a clearer fauve colour, less 

 brown and less dark than M. athalia. The ? s of M. parthenie are 

 often powdered with greenish-grey, with a clear, median area, a little 

 like the ? of M. deione, but they vary much in tint, almost as much 

 as M. cUdyma. The larva of M. parthenie lives on Planta;io. For 

 many years it was abundant in the heart of the abandoned quarry 

 (carriere) of " piuce-poches " at Cesson. This schist quarry is no 

 longer worked, owing to the stone proving insufficiently durable, but 

 an abundance of Planta[/o and other plants have sprung up amongst 

 the broken schist, and M. parthenie has become very common here. 

 The imagines rest on the flowers of Leucanthemum vuli/are, and it is 

 easy, by examining those at rest on the flowers, to select those 

 required. In this way I captured the aberrations which I have noted 

 in the Bulletin de la SocietS Entoin. de France, 1900, pp. 276-277, in 

 a paper entitled " Sur la variabilite de Melitaea parthenie en Bretagne," 

 with which a plate is published, in which nine aberrations are figured 

 by means of a photographic reproduction. 



M. athalia, in the larval stage, lives on Melanipyrum. pratense. It 

 offers, in the imaginal stage, some analagous aberrations to those of 

 M. parthenie, but more rarely. On dull days in June, one may seek 

 successfully aberrations of M. athalia resting on the flowers in wood- 

 ridings, in the roadside ditches, along pathways, or in clearings of 

 the forests. One can, by walking, thus examine a large number of 

 specimens, and one frequently finds among the normal examples at 

 rest a more or less aberrant individual. 



The form of il/. athalia, found in the forests of Brittany, of 

 Limousin, and near Paris, appears to be the same, but, in the south of 

 France, it is rather difierent, and the form found in the plains and the 

 lower mountains of the south has a less deep colour, and is brighter 

 and clearer than in the higher mountains, and in the plains of central 

 and western France. 



M. parthenie inhabits, to my knowledge, all the west of France to 

 the south of Kennes along the coast. It rises in the Hautes-Pyrenees 

 to 1800 or 2000 metres. It is common in the Alps, and, near 

 Zermatt, is found even at a greater altitude than 2000 metres. 

 Those who know M. parthenie and M. athalia in nature could not 

 confound them. They are distinguished as easily as are Plebeian aegon 

 and P. argus, for their habits, the localities frequented by them, and the 

 times of appearance constitute an " ensemble " of detail more easily 

 observed and understood than defined, but which the experience 

 acquired in the field makes valuable to us, so that no uncertainty 

 exists in our minds as to the distinct separation of the species in 

 question. 



Lepidoptera from Normandy — 110 miles from the Sussex coast. 



By J. W. TUTT, F.E.S. 

 Mr. L. Dupont has just published a first-class catalogue''' of the 

 lepidoptera of the district around Pont-de-l'Arche, a little Norman 



* Catalogue des Lepidopteres des environs de Pont-de-l'Arche (Eure), par L. 

 Dupont. Published by Lecerf Fils, Printers, Rouen. 



