NOTES ON COLLECTING. 143 



Euohloe cardamines near Gravesend. — The cold winds, perhaps, 

 have prevented me from seeing many newly-emerged butterflies in my 

 walks this year, but on the afternoon of May 21st I saw a $ Euchlo'e 

 cardamines in Thong Lane, between Chalk and Cobham. The interest 

 of the observation was that it settled for some time on a flowering- 

 spike of Lamium album, the first time, at any rate, that I have seen E. 

 cardamines feeding on the nectar of this plant. Freshly-emerged 

 Lithocolletids were in hundreds on the palings in the lane, towards 

 Cobham, chiefly the oak- and maple-feeding species. — Ibid. 



Lepidopterological notes from Ste. Maxime, Var. — Egg-laying of 

 Papilio machaon. — On April 16th I saw several Libythea celtis flying 

 about an oak-tree, and took two (exhausted $ s) ; strangely there was 

 no celtis plant near. On the same day I observed Papilio machaon J 

 searching for places to lay eggs. She worked about near the ground, 

 rarely a foot above it, and zigzagging about, so slowly, however, that 

 very little effort kept one close to her, at least close enough to see her 

 proceedings without disturbing her. The spot had no carrot, though 

 there was some not many yards off, but had many plants of Ruta 

 (sp. ?). She was attracted by a number of these, and settled on 

 several, but seemed to be almost at once dissatisfied and left. On one 

 she settled on the bare stem, close to the ground, and on this, and on 

 another, occasion, seemed about to lay, but stopped short on her ovi- 

 positor touching the plant. At length she settled on a little plant of 

 rue, with about an inch of stem and two leaves two inches long, a 

 seedling of last year, and on this she laid an egg close to the ground. 

 By going to this plant to verify the egg I lost sight of the butterfly, 

 and so observed her no further. I found the egg on a dead and dry 

 leaf of the plant close to the ground. I was rather struck by her 

 obvious intentions, both in this successful and several of her abortive 

 attempts, to lay her egg near the ground. Eggs I have seen laid 

 before were laid on the upper sides of the ground leaves of carrot, 

 certainly close to the ground, but this I had supposed to be because there 

 were practically no others. [I also saw a Papilio machaon, with the 

 usual yellow colour pure white. It settled, and I got a close view of it. It 

 had lost its tail, and was otherwise worn, so that, no doubt, the loss of 

 colour was fading from weather, etc. The black, however, was very 

 dark, a little rubbed, but in no way faded.] On April 21st, the egg of 

 machaon, at first a richly greenish-white, is now a yellowish-terracotta, 

 with a brown cloudy band round it and above the equator, and a small 

 patch (or spot) of similar colour at apex, agreeing fairly well in tone 

 with the bit of dead dry leaf it is on. — T. A. Chapman. 



Lepidoptera at Halling. — On the morning of May 12th, during 

 a walk to Halling, I observed a larva of Wheeleria baliodactyla, nearly 

 fullfed, feeding exposed in the hot sun, also several imagines of 

 ' elastrina argiolus, Q-onepteryx rhamni, Strenia clathrata, and Fidonia 

 atomaria. — J. Ovenden, Frindsbury, Strood. May ISth, 1907. 



Celastrina argiolus at Chislehurst. — On May 12th, a walk through 

 Mottingham, Paul's Cray Common, and Chislehurst, was remarkable 

 for the almost entire absence of freshly-emerged butterflies, except 

 Pieris rapae, which, abundant here during the last "week of March, 

 almost ceased to emerge tor nearly six weeks, and have now become 

 frequent again. The only exception was Celastrina argiolus, oi which, 

 however, only three examples were observed, all apparently J s, and 



