1S87.J 219 



cratcegi as formerly common near Leominster ; but T never saw it in 

 this county when staying at Hereford and Holm Lacy in 1867 and 



1877. 



Monmouthshire. — Between the 24th and 29th June, 1867, I 

 found this species, not uncommonly, in grass fields about one mile and 

 a half to the north-west of Tiutern, in the direction of Trelleck ; and 

 on the 4th of July of that year I discovered another locality one mile 

 due west of Tintern, where the species occurred in the greatest pro- 

 fusion. Hundreds of specimens were flying about, or settling on the 

 flowers of the Ox-eye daisy {Chrysanthemum leucanthemuiii) , and on 

 thistles, and I was frequently able to capture five or six specimens at 

 one stroke of the net. The same locality also produced numbers of 

 Callimorpha dominula. 



Having secured a long series of A. cratcegi in the New Forest in 

 the previous year, I did not care to take a large number of the Mon- 

 mouthshire specimens, but directed my energies to collecting Vanessa 

 c-alhum and other species which occurred sparingly and required 

 working for, and also to " sugaring " at night, which proved unusually 

 attractive, especially to Thyatira derasa. Ten years after, on the 30tli 

 June, 1877, I again arrived at Tintern, and lost no time in revisiting 

 the old cratcegi localities, the natural conditions of which were un- 

 changed ; but instead of the swarms of this butterfly, which occurred 

 there in 1867, only two specimens were seen during the whole of a 

 fine summer's day ! 



GrLAMORGANSHiuE. — During the years 1868 and 1869, I received 

 liberal supplies of the larvae of this species from two or three corres- 

 pondents in this or adjoining counties. My correspondents have 

 since reported the butterfly as apparently extinct throughout an en- 

 tire district where it formerly abounded. 



If, as appears to be the case, Aporia cratcegi is really on the verge 

 of extinction in England, to what causes is the result due ? 



The almost simultaneous disappearance of the butterfly from all 

 its former localities, from Kent and Hampshire in the south-east and 

 south, to Monmouthshire and Glamorganshire in the west, and North- 

 amptonshire and Huntingdonshire in the midlands, cannot be attributed 

 to the rapacity of collectors. It is possible that cultivation and drain- 

 age may account for the disappearance of this species from some of 

 its former localities ; though from the nature of its food-plants this 

 seems improbable, as an abundance of hedgerow shrubs, like the 

 whitethorn and blackthorn, and orchard trees, such as plum and apple, 

 is not inconsistent with the highest state of cultivation. 



T 2 



