IS DEIOPEIA PULCHELLA A BRITISH SPECIES ? 171 
district, inclusive of the above-named places, is a recognized 
locality for my prize, and that it has bred hereabouts from year 
to year without any continental influx of new blood? The food- 
plant is present in the field where my specimen got up, and Mr. 
T. H. Briggs’s D. pulchella actually settled on a bank where 
Myosotis was growing. 
Here are a few localities extracted from the ‘ Entomologist’ 
which prove that this strange insect has sometimes sought a 
home well inland. The following ‘ takes”’ are recorded :—- 
Entom. iv. 352, at Usk, Monmouthshire; Entom. y. 80, near 
Reading; same vol., p. 412, Ipswich; Entom. viii. 226, at 
Bigeleswaite, Bedfordshire ; and p. 280, at Waltham Cross. I 
am also informed that Mr. J. T. Carrington and the late Mr. 
Prest, while out walking together, in the autumn of 1871, 
through a corn stubble field, near Acomb, Yorkshire, saw a 
specimen, but, having no nets, failed to secure it. There is an 
argument in favour of inland localities which may possibly have 
been overlooked. Say that a collector takes a D. pulchella on 
this or any other coast. In all probability he will not abandon 
the quest, but will follow the coast line with more or less 
fidelity in search of another specimen ; this has certainly proved 
successful in past years. He rightly feels a certain confidence 
in persevering, and that the chances are in his favour. He is 
bounded by the sea on one side, and probably stimulated by the 
similar nature of the coast line before and behind him; but a 
collector at Repton or Biggleswaite has no such stimulus; all 
points of the compass are open to him, the magnitude of the 
task appears to be heightened, the prospect of success apparently 
diminished, and he abandons what he considers to be a hopeless 
undertaking. I am inclined to think that his further search 
would be nearly, if not entirely, as profitable as that of a dweller 
on the coast, and that a diligent walk over adjacent meadows 
and lanes, and the use of the cord swept across arable fields in 
the recognized way, would yield a good measure of success. 
In conclusion I venture to attribute three reasons for the 
continued rarity of Deiopeia pulchella. First, the sluggish 
nature of the insect, which often will not take flight unless 
absolutely kicked up. Secondly, its apparent love of solitude 
in this country; in this way contrasting curiously with the 
allied species Huchelia jacobea, whose habits are entirely 
