﻿NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 87 



May 20th, was succeeded by bitter winds later in the month, so that in 

 many spots the prematurely-forced shoots of oak, ash, bracken, and 

 even bramble, were blackened and withered. The effects of this 

 wintry return after really hot weather were specially noticeable on a 

 visit to Holmbury Hill, Surrey, on June 13th, when whole acres of 

 the whortleberry that clothes the hillside were seared and brown, 

 where the exposure was greatest. Butterflies were fairly abundant 

 in this poorly represented district of Kent. A very noticeable 

 featui'e in the spring of 1914 and for the last few seasons has been 

 the absence or scarcity of larvae of the genus Hybernia and those of 

 Cheimatobia brumata and Oporabia dihitaria, the expanding oak 

 leaves being almost untouched, and, it may be added, the beauty of 

 the woodlands being very much enhanced thereby. The natural 

 result was a scarcity of the resulting imagines in the autumn and 

 winter, during which I only saw a few males of H. aurantiaria, and 

 none of H. defoliaria. Eight years or so ago the spring oak-shoots 

 were regularly denuded by the above and some other species, and on 

 any mild day in autumn or winter specimens of the males could be 

 taken at rest in the greatest profusion on the fences and tree trunks 

 close at hand. These discrepancies in numbers of such common 

 species seem specially worth recording, being the result of purely 

 natural conditions, neither "over-collecting" nor any other artificial 

 interference with the insects themselves, or with their localities, 

 being conceivably responsible for them. The following notes on 

 butterflies refer, when not otherwise mentioned, to the sandy wooded 

 uplands in the neighbourhood of Brasted Chart, or to the parallel range 

 of chalk hills (the North Downs) about two miles further north : — 



Pieris brassica. — First appearance, April 21st, North Downs ; 

 the first brood was in fair numbers, but the second far more abundant. 

 I record a specimen as late as September 25th. P. napi. — From 

 April 21st. P. rapes. — April 19th; both broods plentiful. Last 

 seen, October 5th. 



Euchlo'd cardamines. — Plentiful. First seen at Eeigate, April 

 26th ; a male seen here as late as June 12th. As this butterfly is 

 not usually associated with the cultivated CruciferaB, it may be of 

 interest to record a female on May 22nd depositing eggs on the 

 immature pods of "swedes" in a neglected field where were some 

 flowering survivors of last year's crop. The resulting larvae were fed 

 to maturity entirely on the same food-plant as was selected by the 

 parent female. They pupated about June 24th. It was also found 

 that larvae of this species would feed readily on the young pods of 

 the wild cabbage [Brassica oleracea) picked from plants growing 

 close to the sea in Folkestone Warren. 



Colias edusa. — I have no personal record of this butterfly during 

 1914. 



Gonepteryx rhamni. — This butterfly persists in comparative 

 scarcity about here, though the numbers for 1914 were certainly 

 an improvement on the two previous seasons. First appearance 

 (hybernated), March 31st; seen singly afterwards. Ova observed in 

 Mereworth, May 16th. First of the fresh emergence, August 2nd, 

 and more frequently seen in the garden, at the phloxes, &c., subse- 

 quently, than in the woods. Last record, September 6th. 



