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OBSERVATIONS ON ACHERONTIA ATROPOS. 
By Ricuarp Sours, F.E.S. 
THE native home of Acherontia atropos is probably in sub- 
tropical regions of Africa and Arabia, but the species has a 
geographical range extending throughout Europe and Western 
Asia almost to the northern boundary of the colder temperate 
zone. This boundary is represented by the isotherm, or line of 
mean annual temperature of 423°. 
The occurrence of atropos in any country or district within 
the colder temperate zone is, however, of a somewhat fluctuating 
character. In Great Britain, for instance, the species has been 
observed at some time or other in nearly every part of the 
kingdom, from the Scilly Isles to the Orkneys and Shetlands; 
also in many parts of Ireland. If I am correctly informed it 
would seem that the species is observed almost every year in one 
or more counties on our eastern or south-eastern coasts ; and Mr. 
Packman, of Dartford, tells me that he cannot remember any 
year in which larvee of atropos did not occur in greater or lesser 
numbers in his district. On the other hand, the annual recurrence 
of atropos in the majority of British localities, from which it has 
been recorded, is uncertain. 
The records concerning atropos in our entomological magazines 
are not so full and complete as to furnish a register of all imagines 
observed or larvee and pupe noticed in the United Kingdom for 
any given period; still such records afford data from which we 
may infer the yearly abundance or scarcity of the species. 
Referring then to the magazines for twenty-one years past, it will 
be found that from 1865 to 1872 atropos was probably scarce in 
the year 1866 only; but that between 1872 and 1877 there was a 
period of four years during which the species was apparently 
very scarce, as not a single record of the occurrence of atropos in 
any stage in the British Islands is to be found for the years 1873 
and 1874, and only two imagines are noted for 1875 and 1876 
respectively. Immediately following this long interval of scarcity 
the species appears to have been common for two years in 
succession (locally, 1877; and generally, 1878) ; then in alternate 
years it seems to have been generally scarce or locally common 
till 1885, when it was once more plentiful or even abundant, and 
