NYMPHALID.E. ■ 145 



can be placed upon tliis, since white-bordered specimens are 

 sufficiently common in the Scandinavian peninsula and in other 

 parts of Northern Europe, and it is notorious that ordinary 

 specimens, with yellowish margins, fade white during hyberna^ 

 tion. ]\Ir. R. M. Prideaux records that at Wiesbaden specimens 

 having white borders were common in the spring ; yet all those 

 which emerged freshly in August had the margin of a rich 

 buff colour. The specimen already mentioned as taken by the 

 Rev. E.N. Bloomfield, near Hastings, has a yellowish border, 

 and other, similar, undoubtedly British-caught specimens exist. 



In a case like this a list of localities is useless. Probably 

 wandering specimens have been seen in every county of 

 England and Wales, and for Scotland records exist as far 

 north as Forres in Moray — where two were taken at a 

 " cossus birch " — and Argyllshire. In Ireland tlie records are 

 extremely few, but it has been taken at Killarney, and the 

 Rev. John Brlstowe has one which was captured in 1872, 

 sitting on a stone wall, about two miles from Belfast. 



It does not appear to care much for flowers, though hyber- 

 nated specimens have been seen at sallow and pear blossom, 

 and even when found in a garden is generally sunning itself 

 on a warm wall ; but it is fond of fallen ripe fruit and of the 

 sap of bleeding trees, as well as of the sugar placed on trees 

 to attract moths, and has been found occasionally upon masses 

 of blooming ivy. On the Continent it also frequents muddy 

 spots and putrid substances. It appears to possess the powei", 

 already noticed in its allies, of producing a sound with its 

 wings. Mr. A. H. Jones has noticed this, and calls it a 

 grating sound ; but a continental observer — with the help, 

 probably, of some vividness of imagination — noticed that two 

 specimens, while walking round each other on a beech-stem, 

 agitated their wings " with oft-repeated cries." This he ap- 

 peared to attribute to the proboscis, and to regard as a voice ! 



Very widely distributed over the northern hemisphere. 



6. V. Atalanta, Z. — Expanse, 2^ to 2f inches. Black. 



K 



