﻿264 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



fully expanded, being quite limp and useless for flight. There is, 

 therefore, no question about the specimen having been captured and 

 released, and in any case it is scarcely likely that a dealer would 

 damage and liberate specimens of a comparatively rare butterfly 

 when searching for varieties, in view of the fact that L. arion is 

 little given to variation, and normal specimens, from a dealers point 

 of view, are well worth the taking. Finally, I have a specimen in 

 my collection that well illustrates the particular style of injury, being 

 absolutely perfect with the exception of a triangular piece measuring 

 about 8 mm. each way which is missing from the fore wing between 

 the sixth and eighth veins, the membrane being absent, but the 

 seventh vein being intact, and it was this particular specimen that 

 made me feel inclined to agree with the theory mentioned in my 

 previous letter, that this injury had been caused by ants, either 

 before or while the wings are expanding. I am only acquainted 

 with the Gloucestershire localities of L. arion, but I should like to 

 know if the Cornwall specimens exhibit similar injuries. — J. H. 

 Grant; Cole Dale View, Coleshill Koad, Ward End, Birmingham, 

 October 14th, 1915. 



Abnoemal Pairing of Bndeomis versicolor. — Mr. H. Eowland- 

 Brown's note in the ' Eatomologist ' for October, 1915, on abnormal 

 pairings, recalls an instance which came under my notice when 

 living in London. I happened to have a number of pupae of 

 E. versicolor raised from Culbin ova, and a few of these had 

 emerged, three females and two males, together with a female 

 Amphiclasys strataria. One of the versicolor males shortly paired 

 with a female of its own species, the remaining male buzzing 

 restlessly around the cage. On looking at the insects again an hour 

 or so later, I found the male E. versicolor paired with the female 

 A. strataria. They remained paired for several hours, and ultimately 

 a large batch of ova resulted, but none of them came to anything. — 

 G. Bertram Kershaw ; West Wickham, Kent. 



The Eesting Habit of Hipparchia semele. — My note on 

 pp. 218-9 has called forth some interesting observations from corres- 

 pondents, to whom, as to myself, the affection of H. semele for 

 flowers was something of a novelty. It is curious to find that in 

 Algeria this unusual experience of the butterfly is constant during a 

 certain period of its emergence in the case of H. semele algirica, Obthr. 

 Writing in ' L6pidopt6rologie Compar^e,' fasc. x. pp. 135-7, Mr. 

 Harold Powell lays special stress upon the flower-loving propensities 

 of the species. " During the month of June," he writes, " the 

 butterfly affects flowers ; I observed it principally on thyme and 

 thistle; in the wood clearings and upon uncultivated ground . . . near 

 Sebdou, in the warm mornings of June, 1907, semele was to be seen 

 on the thyme bloom by tens at a time ... I saw semele also in 

 abundance at Djebel-Ksel, near G6ryville, and there also thyme was 

 the favourite plant . . . Later in July, August, and September, the 

 flowers being over, the butterfly betook itself to the shade of the 

 green oak scrub, or rested on the trunks ... It happened more 

 than once that I found this species at my collecting lamp . . . 

 probably disturbed from its rest in the neighbourhood thereof." 



