﻿the butterflies of the bucks. chilterns. 29 



Hesperiid^. 



1. Hesperia malvce, L. This butterfly is hardly common at 

 the outskh'ts of the beech woods. The under sides vary con- 

 siderably in colour from sage green to deep crimson, suggestive of 

 Pyrgus sao. I have never come across a true example of ab. taras, 

 Brgstr., but the intermedia, Schilde, form is not unusual, and I 

 have several ab. scabcllata* Keverdin, in which the spots on 

 the inner margin of the fore wing are united near the margin 

 with a white streak. Is fond of sitting on last year's dead 

 beech leaves in sunny spots. 



Earliest date of appearance, May 17th, 1912 ; latest observed, 

 June 21st, 1902. 



2. Nisoniades tages, L, In some seasons extremely common, 

 affecting the warm banks in the chalk lanes, and again the lush 

 green grass on waste places. I am surprised to find I have no 

 record in my diaries of an autumn emergence, but I am sure in 

 very hot summers I have come across individuals of a second 

 brood. Mr. Spiller reports a second brood in 1914. 



Earliest date. May 11th, 1912 ; latest (first brood) observed, 

 June 22nd, 1908. 



3. Augiades si/lvanus, Esp. Common on both sides of, and 

 throughout the range, but more so on the south slopes. 



Earliest date, June 9th, 1900 ; latest observed, August 

 1st, 1906. 



4. A. comma, L. Another Hesperiid which varies largely in 

 relative abundance. Some years I meet with only a few scattered 

 specimens. (I have generally been abroad at the normal time 

 of appearance in July.) Occasionally it swarms, as in August, 

 1906. Mr. B. C. S. Warren tells me that he caught " very 

 fine" ab. catcBiia, Stgr., between August 9th-15th, 1911. The 

 Hon. N. C. Piothschild reports it from Drayton-Beauchamp, in 

 the eastern extremity of the region; Mr. Spiller, and Mr. Peachell 

 have informed me that it extends well westward in the High 

 Wycombe direction, and to the Oxford Chilterns. 



Earliest date observed, July 8th, 1899; latest, September 

 3rd, 1898. Mr. South records an example at Wendover as early 

 as July 6th, 1893 (Entom. xxvi. p. 252). 



[AdopcEa lineola, Ochs. Neither I nor my several correspon- 

 dents have yet turned up this species in Bucks. Mr. Warren 

 writes: "I have no lineola, probably because I did not take 

 much trouble hunting for them." I have no doubt that a careful 



"^ Ab. scabellata, Eeverdin. As this aberration has not been described 

 or figured to iny knowledge in an English work, I venture to supply the 

 following translation from the original description (Bull. Soc. Lepid. Geneve, 

 vol. ii. p. 153) : — The white spot nearest the inner margin of the median 

 band of the fore wings united by a white dash to the corresponding white 

 spot of the basal series (as in H. alveua ab. lineolata, Rev., ibid., p. 152). 

 The whole arrangement may be compared in shape to a footstool (escabeaii) 

 turned upside down with its feet in the air. 



