264 LEPIDOPTERA. 



cially chalk and limestone hills, and in the north extending 

 high up the mountains ; said also to have the habit of sitting 

 very conspicuously upon the blackest patches of earth on 

 open heaths. It seems probable that the female flies most 

 at night. Very widely distributed in England ; occurring 

 in all the southern counties ; becoming abundant in Berkshire 

 and Gloucestershire, especially on the slopes of chalk hills ; 

 scarce and extremely local in the Eastern Counties ; and 

 apparently absent from Devonshire and Cornwall. In 

 Wales it extends as far west as Glamorganshire. Formerly 

 abundant in Huntingdonshire, and, less so, in Cambridge- 

 shire, but has become scarce or disappeared from those 

 counties. Still found in Worcestershire, Herefordshire, 

 Derbyshire and Leicestershire, though locally ; and more 

 plentifully in Yorkshire, the heaths and moors of Lancashire, 

 and in the Isle of Man. In Scotland it is very widely 

 distributed — from Roxburghshire to Shetland and the 

 Hebrides, being common in the Island of Mull. The white 

 variety, hospita, is found in the Hebrides, also at Braemar, 

 Aboyne, the Forest of Birse, and generally on the mountains 

 of Perthshire, occurring, according to Sir Thomas Moncrieff, 

 at elevations from 600 to 2000 feet above the sea-level. 

 In Ireland this vai'iety does not seem to occur; but in 

 its ordinary forms the species is found in Kerry, Connemara, 

 Galway, Sligo, West Meath, King's County, Tyrone, Fer- 

 managh, Donegal, Londonderry, and Belfast, being plentiful 

 in Island Magee near the mouth of Belfast Lough, where it 

 especially frequents the edges of cliffs overhanging the sea. 



Abroad its range is extremely wide — throughout Northern 

 and Central Europe, the mountains of Southern Europe, 

 in Siberia, Tartary, and Japan. In Siberia the form known 

 as hosjjita is found, its female having the hind wings 

 varying towards red, and also the aberration having the 

 markings of the hind wings almost obliterated. In Japan 

 is a race of large specimens —named leucomera — the fore 

 wings having broad black markings, and another of a 



