A' YMPHA LW.£. 1 89 



death by closing its wings and drawing in its legs. In a 

 wood in East Sussex in 1868 it was so abundant in a clear- 

 ing, that I frequently secured five or six at a stroke of the 

 net from the flowers of Euphorhia amf/i/dcdoides. Mdaiivpyruvi 

 pratense is abundant in all these East Sussex woods, and I 

 have often seen the butterfly alight on its flowers and also on 

 those of Ajuga rcptans and Lijcliivl^ Jios-nwcdi, as well as on 

 the Euphorbia. In 1868 it was out in abundance on June 

 3rd, in 1869 from June 8th to 12th, but in 1875 not until 

 June 22nd ; in several other years it has been equally late, 

 and I have taken it even on July 12th. It often sits on 

 flowers with the fore wings laid back over the hind." Else- 

 where it appears to prefer heathy spots bordering upon 

 woods. Mr. G. C. Bignell says : " I have seen it in numbers, 

 close to the Dewerstone on Dartmoor, flying among stunted 

 heather. It has a preference for sitting on or near the Ger- 

 mander speedwell, which grows in patches in the clearings. 

 After the young oak coppice (grown from the old stumps) is 

 about four years old, these butterflies remove entirely from 

 the spot into more recent clearings, for the larvse like the 

 sunshine. The butterflies are more sluggish than Argiinnit 

 Selene, sail gracefully along and alight on flowers or on Erica 

 cinerca or speedwell." At night and in wet weather it has 

 been found to rest upon grasses as well as upon its food 

 plant, Mdampyruni. In 1868 the Rev. E. N. Bloomfield 

 took a single specimen on August 29th in Sussex, but there 

 is no evidence to show whether this was produced from a late 

 or retarded larva, or from one which had fed up hastily so as 

 to indicate an attempt at a second emergence in the year. 



Formerly abundant in Essex and on the border of Suffolk. 

 now extinct in some of the localities and scarce in others. 

 Its principal stations aj^pear now to be confined to the 

 southern counties, as Kent, in which it occurs in the Isle of 

 Thanet, and elsewhere in the Canterbury and Tenterden 

 districts, and possibly still lingers at Chattenden, where it 

 used to be plentiful, but has shared the fate of other interest- 



