^ AND ^^ 



JOURNAL OF VARIATION. 



No. 10. Vol. VI. June 15th, 1895. 



jlotes on the jiabits arid Variation of Lit^iosia lutarella and 

 its variety pygmaeola.* 



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



The Deal Sandhills ! A name to conjure with among entomologists a 

 dozen years ago ; now, thanks (?) to the golfers, utterly ruined for many 

 of the rare insects which formerly abounded there. In the afternoon 

 sunsliine of early July, Acidalia ochrata flew in hundreds among the 

 Ononis, in its restricted haunts just beyond the " second battery;" Nola 

 centonalis could be obtained by searching with a lantern in the hollows 

 where the Hippojjhaes rhainnoides grew ; and on the marram culms at 

 night, Lithosia jrijyrnaeola, the English form of L. lutarella, was some- 

 times to be seen in thousands. Miles of undulating sandhills, left by 

 the sea and protected by an immense bank of shingle, stretch from 

 Deal into Sandwich. No shifting masses of sand, liable to be blown 

 hither and thither by each jiassing wind, are these, for they are, as a 

 rule, bound solidly together by grass and wildflowers ; here, with the 

 tough coarse marram growing luxuriantly on the sloj^ing banks ; there, 

 extending for a considerable distance level and flat and covered with turf 

 that would do credit to many a park or lawn. Galium and Ononis, 

 dwarf and spare, make nevertheless a beautiful carpet of yellow and 

 pink. Now, we come across a damp hollow filled with thistles and 

 dock, in which Chrijsophanus pMoeas sometimes abounds, then, meet 

 with a dry patch covered with stinging-nettles, which are often 

 skeletonised by the larvai of Pijraiaeis atalanta and Vanessa urticae, 

 whilst yonder, a knoll is festooned with a healthy patch of dwarf sallow. 

 Occasionally a ditch may be seen running across the mounds, stretclung 

 from the sea far inland, its banks clotlied with a luxuriant growth of 

 delicately scented Spiraea aiul brilliantly tinted Epilobiim, with a dank 

 undergrowth of ditch-side vegetation, on which the caterpillar of 

 Choevocampa elpenor may fre(piently be seen. In the slimy de])ths of 

 the ditclies, reeds, irises, bulrushes and Spargaitiniu revel, whilst the 

 Potamoijeton and water-lily float their leaves and blossoms on the surface 

 of the water. Along these ditches, rare Wainscot moths occur ; Leii- 

 cania straminea and Noiuujria spar<janii, roam among the reeds and irises, 



* Eead before the South London Entomological and Natural History Society 

 Feb. 20th, 189o. ^' 



