388 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



rear, my chances of securing food-plant during the next fort- 

 night's travel being altogether hopeless. 



The headquarters of C. var. rutilus, hereabouts, I soon found 

 to be in the low-lying fen, and on the banks of the stream 

 between the Bruges and the Le Vigean-Blanquefort road. On 

 August 2nd males and females were in abundance — rather larger, 

 and both sexes in better condition ; while at one point, where 

 the brown peaty water falls over a little weir, and provides an 

 agreeable bath for the lads of the district, I had the extreme 

 pleasure of observing no fewer than eighteen males and six 

 females on a single plant of Inula dyscntcrica. 



This Blanquefort locality was known evidently for many 

 years to local collectors of a past generation, but M. Brown 

 informed me that for the moment lepidopterists are scarce in 

 Bordeaux. I find in Trimouiet's * Cat. des Lepids. de la Gironde' 

 (Bordeaux, 1858) : — "Hippothoe, L., June and August. In the 

 marshes on Inula dysenterica. At Blanquefort, Begles, Coure- 

 g6an, &c. Larva in April and June on Iris -pseud-acorus " — 

 surely a mistake, even if hippotlio'e, Hb., be not the " Copper" 

 intended — as I am sure it is — because hippothoe, L. (= chryseis, 

 Hb.) does not occur in Gironde, and M. Brown told me that he 

 had himself introduced the late M. Trimoulet to these haunts of 

 rutilus. The butterfly, as we have seen, still affects the ileabane. 

 Tutt has collected the various food-plants (' British Butterflies,' 

 vol. i. p. 448), and, with the exception of Polygonum historta — on 

 the authority of Heyne — they are without exception species of 

 llumex. If Trimoulet had said that the imago rests on the Iris, 

 I could have endorsed his evidence, for, when the sun was 

 temporarily clouded, I noticed several females sitting on the flag 

 blades, probably conveniently near to the hydrolapatlium, of 

 which there was plenty in all the ditches and at the edge of 

 the river. 



Looking over the series in my cabinet, I find very little 

 variation in the males. They differ chiefly in the degree of 

 visibility of the under- side marginal and antemarginal spots of 

 the hind wings showing through. In the females, which display 

 a considerable difference of size, ranging from about 33 mm. 

 to 40 mm., the tendency to dark suffusion of th'e hind wings 

 upper side is most marked, while the antemarginal black spots 

 on the fore wings range from light inconspicuous to heavily 

 accentuated dots. 



I can only regret that my time should have been necessarily 

 limited to two days, or rather a day and a half, at Bordeaux. The 

 country round is varied, and the lepidopterous fauna rich. 

 Another year I hope I may have the good fortune to be going 

 south in this direction in June, when the first and finest emer- 

 gence of rutilus takes place, the butterfly then being in size no 

 whit inferior to our long defunct and lamented C. disjjar. 



