LEPIDOPTERA ON THE KENTISH CHALK-HILLS IN SEPTEMBER. 



285 



cata. — Svabhegy, June 11th, rather common. Anaitis plagiata and 



PsEUDOTERPXA PRUINATA (cYTHISARIa). — I hldapest. CUCULLIA BALSAMIT^. 



— Several at rest, June 11th, Peszer. Diacrisia sanio (russula). — 

 Budapest. Adscita statices and Syntomis phegea. — Herculesbad, 

 common. 



Lepidoptera on the Kentish Chalk-hills in September. 



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



The lateness of the season, 1907, led me on September 15th to go 

 on a hunt for Aricia astrarche, a species of which one or two items, 

 required for our Natural History of British Butterflies, bad been missed. 

 One expected that it should not have been difficult to get, but I did not 

 see it, nor many other things one might ordinarily expect to have 

 seen. Leaving Strood about 11 a.m., there appeared to be some hope 

 of a bright day, but, although it was warm, and there was evidently 

 an attempt on the part of the sun to get through, a dense haze 

 prevented it doing so, and this conduced, perhaps, to our not 

 seeing more insects than we did. Taking the road past the cemetery 

 across the fields to Ranseombe, we met, almost at the outset, a number 

 of Epinephele ianira, a few ( 'oenonympha pamphilus, and large, freshly- 

 emerged examples of Polyommatus icarus, males only seen; these were 

 sitting either on the scabious and centaurea flowers growing on the rough 

 banks, or on the leaves of a second crop of clover (about as forward now, 

 as is usually the case in early August). They tried to get all the wan nth 

 from the sun they could, opening their wings so that the sun's rays 

 might fall on them, but it was a half-hearted result evidently, and, 

 instead of the wings being flattened horizontally and the forewings 

 brought far forward, they were opened rather less, perhaps, than 

 a right-angle, and moved sluggishly. A few freshly-emerged Stenop- 

 tiliit bipunctidactyla were disturbed, and this was all. 



Through the hop-gardens, and then over the fields from Eanscombe 

 to Bush, was really a delightful walk, but butterflies were scarce. A line, 

 freshly-emerged Vanessa in was sunning on the bare path, its body so 

 turned that it should receive as much heat as possible, but often edging 

 round from this position to which, however, it returned ; then a patch of 

 lucerne in bloom, gave a lot of Polyommatus icarus, both sexes, the 

 females hardly at all shot with blue, a few Aglais urticae, Coenonym- 

 pha pamphilus and Epinephele ianira, and this, again, was all ; but a 

 little further on, walking under the woods, the eye caught sight of a 

 male Gonepteryx rhamni, hanging from the underside of a, buckthorn 

 leaf, only about six inches or nine inches from the ground, and 

 a closer inspection showed the empty pupa-case, not on the same, but 

 beneath an adjacent, leaf. It was quite impossible to see the pupa 

 from above, and, to any but a, trained eye, the imago would not have been, 

 at first glance, discovered. Then on to the " bank," and here Agriad.es 

 corydon was fairly numerous, the males in moderately good condition, 

 but like Polyommatus icarus, not sunning in their usual full-hearted 

 manner, but with the forewings pulled hack for a considerable distance 

 over the hindwings and not let down horizontally, as one had just been 

 accustomed to see them in the hot sunshineof the Alpsof Cenl ml Europe. 

 The females were abundant, mostly quite fresh, and some well-marked 

 with blue (one nearly ah. syngrapha), and engaged in feeling on the vari- 

 ous wild flowers — chiefly, however, thyme and knapweed, plants that are 

 abundant there. The Epinephele ianira were in all sorts of condition, 



