HESPERID^. 293 



so easily yet so quickly done that I could scarcely pee whether 

 it was performed by the legs or the wings, but I rather think 

 the former. When she was gone I opened the sheath, formed 

 by the leaf round the stem, and found therein about thii'ty 

 small white eggs deposited in a line." 



This species has generally been regarded as doubled- brooded 

 in this country, as well as abroad, but my own observations 

 for many years past do not support this view, and as a result 

 of nuDierous inquiries in our more southern districts I find 

 the balance of evidence to be against it. In warm forward 

 seasons specimens may be found, at the end of May, in small 

 numbers or even, rarely, in plenty ; but usually June is well 

 advanced before it Ijecomes common, and, from the slow and 

 irregular habit of feeding of the larvio, emergence evidently 

 continues into July, while in the later seasons specimens may 

 be found in the early part of August, but there is no interval 

 to allow of the feeding up of another generation of larvae. 

 Indeed, when it begins to emerge early, and hot weather 

 allows continuous emergence, the species is quite over before 

 the end of July. No locality in the United Kingdom would 

 seem more likely to furnish a second brood than Dover, where 

 the insect is found in multitudes on the hot chalk hills, yet 

 as the result of a good mauy years' experience, Mr. Sydney 

 Webb says : " From the end of May to the middle of August 

 is the usual time. Thei-e is sometimes a second flush of 

 specimens in a good season, biit I am now convinced that there 

 is only one sound brood, rather long continued, yet not veiy so, 

 considering that the insect occurs eveiy where, hill-side, heath 

 and woodland." It would, however, be rash to contend that 

 casual cases never occur iu which precocious larvas feed up 

 rapidly and emerge the same year, as is known to occur iu 

 many other, usually single-brooded, species. 



Abundant in all parts of England and \\'ales, with the 

 exception of the North of England, yet common in Yorkshire 

 and in some parts of Lancashire, and found locally in the 

 remaininir counties and in the South of Scotland, though 



