NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 233 



NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 



Pararge MEGai]RA IN North-West Middlesex. — The past two 

 seasons have been wonderfully prolific of Lepidoptera in my experi- 

 ence. Absentees have turned up after many years ; others usually 

 rare in this district have been comparatively common. In the former 

 category is P. meg(2ra, which I had supposed actually to be extinct 

 on the Middlesex north border until August 24th, when I discovered 

 a wasted female sunning herself on a plant of ragwort in a small 

 orchard attached to the garden. It is twenty-four years since I last 

 met with the butterfly in Middlesex or in this neighbourhood. The 

 late Mr. A. B. Gibbs, in his last Presidential Address to the Herts 

 Natural History Society (' Trans.,' vol. xvi, part 3, p. 175, January, 

 1917), said that he had not seen megcera at St. Albans since June, 

 1902, adding that it is now very scarce in the county, " if it has not 

 altogether disappeared from the south and west "■ — that is, the part 

 which abuts on the Middlesex frontier within half a mile of our house. 

 On reference to my diary I find that the last example of megcera noted 

 by me was flying on the L.N.W.R. bank within the Middlesex 

 boundary on May 18th, 1894. I made a search, therefore, of this 

 locality on the 24th, and was pleased to meet with a male on the 

 Little Oxhey Lane railway- bridge, wdiich is just in Hertfordshire. It 

 will be interesting to hear whether other observers have encountered 

 megcera in Middlesex or South Herts this or last year. It seems 

 always to have been rare in the latter half of the nineteenth century 

 hereabouts. ' Harrow Butterflies and Moths ' (vol. i, 1895) includes 

 no record later than C. Melvill's ' Flora of Harrow,' and I think that 

 the list of Lepidoptera in this work was completed before 1867. My 

 own observation appears in the supplement to vol. ii (1897), and is 

 the only one more or less modern. In a list I have seen, compiled 

 by Dr. F. A. Dixey, F.R.S. (1874), it is stated to occur at Highgate ; 

 Mr. Harold Hodge (' Entomologist,' vol. xx, p. 266, 1887) mentions a 

 single example in a plot of ground adjoining a house in Highbury 

 Place, N. This is not repeated in " A Preliminary List of the Insect- 

 Fauna of Middlesex" (o^J. cit., vol. xxix, p. 31, 1887), where, how- 

 ever, Hampstead is cited (Godwin, 1872-75) ; and Mill Hill by 

 Mr. South. A single example is reported also by Mr. H. D. Sykes 

 on Enfield Cedars Estate on August 17th, 1889 (op. cit., vol. xxvi, 

 p. 12, 1893). I give these several notes, as the localities are at no 

 great distance from mine. — H. Rowland-Brown ; Harrow- Weald, 

 Middlesex. 



Courtship of Pararge meg^ra. — P. megara swarmed this year 

 in August on the Corfe and Swanage Downs. During the first week 

 it was in beautiful condition, but became worn very quickly, and the 

 rich tawny colouring of the wings seemed to be particularly evanes- 

 cent. One afternoon I watched a female settled low down on a bare 

 patch of warm earth on the hillside. She commenced " calling," 

 her wings vibrating continuously and rapidly until a male answered. 

 The male, after a preliminary flutter, settled down in front of the 

 female, and commenced butting at her with his antennae, she answer- 

 ing back — for all the world like a pair of rams fighting. After some 



EN TOM — OCTOBER, 1918. X 



