NOTES AND OBSERVATIONS. 115 



itself a good Latin word — the name of the well-known historian 

 Livy — and therefore requires no added letter to make it euphonious 

 to a Latin ear. 



Latin and Greek were chosen as the basis of scientific nomen- 

 clature in order that its terms might be comprehensible to educated 

 men of all nations and languages ; this end will not be attained if 

 individualistic writers substitute their own practice for that of the 

 Greeks and Komans. — Edward Meyeick ; Thornhanger, Marl- 

 borough, April 6th, 1917. 



Agriades bellargus in 1916. — So common is Agriades bellargus 

 in its special haunts generally that any little accession or diminution 

 in numbers is likely to go unnoticed, but sometimes its numbers are 

 so greatly increased that they cannot be overlooked, and the season 

 of 1916 appears to have been one of these occasions. First as to this 

 immediate neighbourhood — the sea end of the South Downs. Un- 

 fortunately circumstances did not admit of my getting any note of 

 the spring emergence, but of the autumn emergence odd specimens 

 were on the wing on the slopes under Beachy Head as early as July 

 29th — fully a fortnight to three weeks earlier than usual. By the 

 middle of August it was abundant, and from that time till the first 

 week in September it was vastly more so than I have known it to be 

 for many years. Then, again, at the extreme western end of the 

 parade is a grassy bank, of but a few square yards in extent, that 

 still remains in its pristine condition. Here 4. bellargus has occurred 

 so long as I can remember, but for many years past only very 

 sparingly, but towards the end of August last it occurred there in the 

 greatest profusion, the specimens jostling one another for a seat on 

 the blossoms of Centaurea, of which numbers of plants grow among 

 the grass. Nor were the South Downs alone affected, for on a sunny 

 slope not far from the village of Otford, in Kent, probably now the 

 nearest locality to London where A. bellargus may still be found, and 

 where for many years it has been so scarce that one thought them- 

 selves lucky if half-a-dozen specimens were secured in a day's 

 collecting, the June emergence was positively abundant, and the 

 autumn emergence but little less so. Had the year been a par- 

 ticularly fine one we should probably have taken the abundance of 

 specimens that I have mentioned as a matter of course, but the year 

 1916, with its record for the south-east of England of more than two 

 hundred hours of sunshine less than the average, an excess of some 

 nine inches of rain, and a mean temperature of practically the 

 average, but which was kept up largely by the mildness of the winter 

 months, seems hardly a time to expect such happenings. It would 

 be interesting to know whether the foregoing are mere isolated cases, 

 or whether the species throughout its somewhat restricted British 

 range occurred in similar abundance. — Robert Adkin ; Eastbourne, 

 March, 1917. 



(Another instance of a superabundant Lycaenid in 1916 is A. 

 corydon in the Chilterns. It simply swarmed in its old haunts in 

 August, weather despite. — H. R.-B.) 



