loo LEPIDOPTERA. 



greatly, and 1870 was the most prolific year known ; a thousand 

 specimens might have been taken. 187G-7 were good seasons, 

 but in the following (wet) years they steadily decreased, and 

 the last he had then seen were in 1880. Major Still tells me 

 that it was, at one time, found commonly in some very restricted 

 localities in the neighbourhood of Langport, Somerset, and 

 that it was collected there by the late Mr. J. C. Dale, but 

 thei-e is no recent record for that district. The wild hills of 

 the South Devon coast near Kingsbridge, Bolt Head, &c., 

 were long favoured haunts of this species. Mr. H. Nicholls 

 records, in the Entomoloiji&t^ its abundance there from 185C 

 to 1875, and says that it had a curious habit, when frightened, 

 of dashing into one of the numerous bushes of iuvze (Ulex 

 E'uropccus) and hiding itself in the middle thereof, from which 

 secure retreat it could not be induced to emerge. Mr. G. C. 

 Bignell, who took it freely in the same district, says : " It is 

 conspicuous when on the wing, from its dark colour. The 

 females are very partial to the flowers of the wild thyme, on 

 which they deposit their eggs, and on the nectar of which 

 they also feed. It has been exterminated from its old locality 

 on Bolt Head by the practice of the farmei's of burning the 

 furze every year." It is said, however, still to exist in a few 

 localities in both South and North Devon, and was found last 

 year (1891) in Cornwall, from which county a bos of very 

 fine and beautiful specimens was exhibited at the meeting 

 of the Entomological Club, by the captors, Messrs. Water- 

 house. It is hardly necessary to say that the exact localities 

 of recent captures have not been divulged. For this reason, 

 and because suitable wild ground exists in great plenty in the 

 extreme south-west, to which it seems to be retiring, there is 

 hope that this, our largest Polyomrnatus, will not, for some 

 years at least, be finally exterminated in this country. 



Abroad its range is very wide in Europe and Asia. The 

 late Professor Zeller wrote to the Zoologist, that in the 

 plains he found it plentifully in moist open meadows, at the 

 foot of the wooded hills, where, however, Thymux snyyllurn 



