30 [July. 



own extermination iu a very singular manner. It seemed that its 

 instinct — derived from a country of longer summers — tended towards 

 the production of a second brood in the year, and eggs were laid which 

 produced the young larvae in October on the young thistles. These 

 larvae, of course, perished in the ^\'et winter, and the species disappeared, 

 to re-appear after this interval, in obedience to the strange migratory 

 instinct. It is extremely difficult to get at data from which to judge 

 of the cause of this system of irregular migration, but I think we have 

 now a clue to the means by which species are locally destroyed. 



Both species are still flying about in thc'sunshine in plenty. I 

 must have seen scores of cardui to-day in the course of a short drive, 

 and hope to see the roads rendered attractive by an abundance of the 

 pretty creatures in far greater perfection at the end of July, if only 

 this lovely weather remains faithful to us ; but I fear that, undeterred 

 by the fate of their kindred, they will lay their eggs in the autumn, 

 to no purpose. 



Among the species able to endure a humid climate, Melitcea 

 Artemis must certainly be included, though even it, no doubt, appre- 

 ciates the value of warm sunshine at the time when its hibernated 

 larvae leave their sheltering tent to feed up in the spring. 



I found the butterflies just emerging from the pupa in one of 

 their favouinte haunts at the end of May, in rather unusual numbers, 

 and a week later, on a second visit, they were out in hundreds. When 

 freshly out (on the first visit) they were very beautiful, some having 

 a row of white spots along the margin of the hind-wings, and many 

 emulating, though not equalling, the lovely dark markings of the 

 West of Ireland specimens. One or two had a broad pale band 

 across the fore-wings from the obliteration of a dark transverse line, 

 and one of these had also the under-side of the hind-wings ornamented 

 in a similar manner. 



On the other hand, Arffynnis Selene has disappeared from the 

 road-sides, and the little strips of marsh into which it had found its 

 Avay in recent years, and is only to be found in the woods and down 

 the slopes of sea-clif£s. In the latter localities, a slight tendency to 

 greater richness of marking leads one to hope for some handsome 

 variety, which, as yet, has not turned up. 



Such a hope led me the other evening down a charming place, a 

 long slope covered with coarse grasses, furze, heath, wood-sage, 

 violet, &c., running down to where the bare rock, sixty feet deep, was 

 fringed with ivy, privet, wild madder, Silene maritima, thrift, and other 

 sea-side plants. Here Selene was thoroughly at home, as completely 



