108 [October, 



four specimens of L. Avion were sometimes to be seen at the same 

 time, flying gently about, or settling on tbe thyme, and they were 

 accompanied by numbers of Lyccena Alexis, and by a good many L. 

 Adonis and L. Agestis. I boxed several female L. Avion, in the hopes 

 of getting ova, but did not obtain any. Amongst the other insects 

 noticed in this wood were Chelonia planfaginis, Flafypteryx unguicula< 

 Ephyra irilinearia, Ifelanippe monfanata, and Acidalia ovnata. 



In the end of June, 1877, I again visited Gloucestershire, anc 

 stayed from the 25th to the 29th of the month, in a farm house abou 

 two miles distant from the localities in which Avion had occurred ii 

 the preceding year. I was delighted to find that the species occurrerl 

 in both localities more plentifully than in 1876, and was even morj 

 widely distributed in the open spaces in the beech-woods extending 

 for a distance of nearly two miles. I 



On the 29th June, 1S77, the day on which I left the district, 1 

 Avion was commoner than on any previous occasion, and although' 

 many specimens were worn, others, both (^ and $ , were just emergirj 

 from the chrysalis, so that in this species there appears to be a succe: 

 sion of specimens during June and the early part of July. 



In June, 1878, I heard from Mr. Marsden, of Grloucester, th.l 

 L. Avion was very rare that year ; and from that time to the prese 

 he has been unable to report to me the capture of a single specimer 

 Last year, after an interval of six years, I was again staying 

 the neighbourhood of Stroud, from the 18th to the 2Gth June, a 

 visited the old localities on every day when the weather was fine a 

 calm ; but neither on the hills, in the old quarries, nor in the beec 

 woods, did I see a single specimen of L. Avion. Not only were thd; 

 no L. Avion, but L. Adonis and Agestis were both conspicuous 

 their absence ; and with the exception of a few Chovtohius Paonphi J 

 and a casual Lyccena Alexis, insect-life seemed almost extinct, f 

 could scarcely realize that I was in the same locality as that whic 1 

 had left in June, 1877, so full of life ! 



There seems to be no satisfactory explanation for this sudd 

 disappearance of L. Avion from these localities in the Cotswo/i- 

 It has been suggested by some persons acquainted with the distr ;■ 

 that the apparent extinction of the species may be attributed to t 

 practice of burning the grass on the hill-sides for the purpose^ 

 improving the pasture. Had the herbage on these hills been bi i^ 

 for the first time in 1878, it might, with some reason, have been ( > 

 sidered the probable cause of the extinction of L. Avion ; but as i* 

 practice of burning the grass is not a new one, but has, as I have l''' 



