NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 335 



south-east wind blowing. I had marked out in my mind a special 

 spot on the chalk hills where I might expect to meet with our 

 "Clouded Yellow" in a favourable season, nor was I disappointed, for 

 though practically all other butterflies, except G. rhamni, and belated 

 females of A. medoii, had disappeared, I saw at least a dozen edusa 

 in all, the males quite fresh, while I also had the pleasure of watching 

 a worn female ovipositing. She chose by preference the most 

 stunted plants j)f a Medicago growing sometimes actually in the 

 gutter of the road, at this point confined between steep chalk banks 

 well covered with Helianthcmum, Hippocrepis, and scabious. My 

 presence in no way disconcerted her movements ; and she passed 

 several times up and down the roadside, laying, I should think, quite 

 a score of eggs, one at a time, and never two on the same small spray. 

 Of these I brought a few home with me in situ, but when I came to 

 open the air-tight box in which they were carried, a week later, I 

 could find no trace either of larvae or ova, and I think the young 

 larvae must have emerged and perished in the curled dry leaves 

 which had been shaken out previous to examination. Cycling home 

 by way of Tring, later in the day, I captured another perfect male on 

 the side of the road just south of Aston-Clinton, and from the window 

 of the train in the morning I had spotted yet another edusa on the 

 railway bank between Chorley Wood and Chalfont Road Stations, 

 where I see the late Eev. F. k. Walker met with it on Sep- 

 tember 13th, 1900 (Entom. vol. xxxiii. p. 273). We may conclude, 

 therefore, that the butterfly had been widespread in south and mid 

 Buckinghamshire during the month. But to which brood did these 

 newly emerged males side by side with worn females belong ? 



My own third-brood images were bred from ova deposited by a 

 female taken in the Warren, Folkestone, about August 19th, and 

 sent me by Mr. L. Newman. By the 28th all of the twenty-four 

 were hatched, and they fed exclusively on Lotus corniciilatus, refusing 

 Trifolium pratense when it was introduced. But though there was 

 comparatively little difference in the dates of emergence, individual 

 larvas developed much quicker than others. For instance, on Septem- 

 ber 28th, when the first three hung up for pupation, others were no 

 more than an inch long ; and I noticed that there is one moult, the 

 third, which was most critical, seven or eight perishing at this stage 

 apparently from exhaustion, as they ceased eating entirely, shrunk, 

 and fell comatose from the food-plant. x\fter remaining three days 

 rigid on the leno, pupation took place with the " forwards " (about 

 thirty-three days from hatching). On October 2lst-22nd three full- 

 sized females emerged (that is, about three full weeks after pupa- 

 tion). Meanwhile, the third emergence, apparently, was proceeding 

 in Buckinghamshire under natural conditions, and on October 9th, 

 another magnificent day, I was once more on the Chilterns, and at 

 the same spot where I had watched the female edusa ovipositing on 

 September 27th, my companion, Mr. N. C. Rothschild, bagged a 

 single fresh example of the same sex. I see Mr. Newman in his 

 recently pubHshed book of ' British Butterflies and Moths ' says that 

 "this larva may he forced from August ovum " (p. 18). This year, at 

 all events, no artificial warmth has been required to mature the third 

 brood. — H. Rowland-Brown ; Harrow Weald, October 26th, 1913. 



