'54 



LEPIDOPTERA. 



the larva oi' pupa state, for no freshly emerged specimens 

 were noticed in the spring, and no trace of the great 

 migration i-emained. Mr. Buckler, who had the, already 

 noticed, hairy autumnal larvjB, kept a pupa alive almost until 

 the spring, but it produced the butterfly early in Februai-y. 

 This instinctive attempt to perfect a second brood in the 

 year, in accordance with the habit of the species in its 

 warmer southern range, evidently resulted in the entire de- 

 struction, as far as this country was concerned, of the 

 migratory hosts. In 1884 another great iri'uption of this 

 species was noticed, and probably similar instances are by no 

 means rare, yet it is equally certain that we have, somewhat 

 irregularly distributed, a local strain of the species which has 

 the instinctive habit of hybernating before pairing and lay- 

 ing eggs, and these hybernated specimens are ordinarily seen 

 in the spring. In South Africa Mr. Distant has found it 

 flying thi'oughout the winter, and there it would doubtless 

 produce at least two generations. 



As in the case of V. atalanta we have little or no know- 

 ledge of its favourite places of hybernation. Like that 

 species it does not frequent buildings ; and, although not so 

 late on the wing in the autumn, it is quite as tardy in re- 

 appearing in the sprintj. 



In its fitful way it is found in every part of the United 

 Kingdom, even to the Shetland Isles. Perhaps, of all species 

 of butterfly, the most universally distributed over the world, 

 found even in -Java and Australia, exactly normal in colour 

 and markings. In the Entomoloyids Montlihj Maga-Anc for 

 1872 is an account of an extraordinary flight seen in the 

 Ionian Isles. " The first part of the column reached the 

 Island of Vido about nine o'clock in the morning and con- 

 tinued steadily to advance in masses of many thousands for 

 upwards of three hours. By one o'clock the flight had passed, 

 the wind blowing fresh from the south-east. On sailing up 

 the channel of Corfu the traces of the passage of the flight 

 were very evident from the quantities of dead butterflies 

 which floated on the surface of the water ; and for days 



