60 TH?: entomologist's record. 



the subtropical. It does not fuss about its habitat — wind-swept moors, 

 sun-baked chalkhills. steaming southern dirchsides, and northern 

 snow-covered wastes appear to be equally suitable. With such a 

 range of distribution and such a variety in its habitats, it may be 

 supposed that the species would prove exceedingly variable, and so it 

 is, but rather in the direction of forming local races than in 

 developing polymorphic aberrations. 



Another factor that comes into play here, is the remarkable way 

 in which the habits of the species have accommodated themselves to 

 its varying environments. In the north it is single-brooded, 

 hybernating as a larva, possibly in its most northern habitats taking 

 sometimes two years to pass the larval stage ; in Scotland and northern 

 England, in Scandinavia, and Russia at fairly high altitudes and 

 latitudes, it is permanently single-brooded, with a very occasional 

 rapidly-feeding larva producing an autumnal imago. In central 

 Europe, including Ireland and midland and southern England, the 

 species is largely double-brooded, but with " laggards " in every brood 

 maintaining the single-brooded habit, and '• forwards" attaining, or 

 attempting to attain, a triple-brooded state. In southern Europe the 

 triple-brooded condition appears to become normal, whilst in the most 

 favoured parts of the Mediterranean area the species is continuously- 

 brooded. The progeny of the Pegomas J , captured last April, has 

 shown very markedly the southern habit, and has attempted to carry 

 it into practice here, for, whilst Bacot bred a fine lot of imagines in 

 late June and early July, from the eggs laid in April a certain number 

 of the same brood insisted on not comingout until August to September 

 (the double-brooded habit), whilst at this time, the imagines fromthe 

 June to July laid eggs, had already commenced to appear as a third 

 brood, large numbers emerging thus in September-October, whilst 

 Ovenden, to whom a l^atch of July eggs was sent also reared at 

 this time a large brood ; from September eggs both these lepidopterists 

 have larvip feeding, some of which will possibly attempt to emerge as 

 a fourth brood, whilst the rest will most likely pass a normal hyberna- 

 tion as larva?, for such hybernation as there is. be the locality ever so 

 extreme north or south, appears to be always passed in the larval 

 stage. 



You may ask whether this continuous-broodedness is usual in 

 nature, and J am constrained to answer that by looking up the records 

 of various collectors in southern localities, published in the various 

 magazines, you are as well able to judge as I. The fact is, in spite 

 of our calling ourselves naturalists, we know very little of nature. A 

 stray fact or two, however, picked up from Mathew's observations 

 {E7it., xxxi., p. 83), give some sort of clue to the answer. He 

 observes that, on December 81st, 1896, he took a full-grown larva of 

 this species in Malta that produced a large dark J on January 30th, 

 1897, that on March 8th, he took a 2 sitting on a stone, on March 

 13th, another $ flying in the hot sun (the only note 1 have ever seen 

 of day-flying habits observed in this sex). Evidently the knowledge 

 of these early appearances in the Mediterranean district led Mathew to 

 surmise (oy/. vit., p. 114) that imagines captured by him on the 

 Boschetto, near Trieste, between September Hrd-loth. were of a third 

 brood. It may be observed that, although 1 have assumed a double- 

 brooded habit in the south of England, a triple-brooded habit naay be 



