ANTHKOCERA ACHILLEA, ESPER, IN SCOTLAND. 219 



ment, without specifyiug exact localities.* My friend M. L. 

 Dupout is so exact an observer and expert of this otherwise 

 difficult group that I have asked him for his views on the subject. 

 He is not satisfied with some of Viret's identifications — that is 

 clear. But he says {in litt.) there is nothing inherently impossible 

 in the occurrence of achillecc at St. Valery, though he has no 

 personal knowledge. On the other hand, M. Dupont confirms 

 the Orival locality (where it had been confused with A. purpu- 

 ralis), which, of course, is compaiatively far from the sea, 

 observing, further, that he never found it at, or in the neighbour- 

 hood of Le Havre, where he lived for a long time. So far as 

 Normandy is concerned, then, the nearest point to the Channel 

 where achillece has been recently identified is near Ryes, a 

 little town about three miles from the coast at Arromanches, 

 Calvados. M. Dupont has seen the actual specimens taken 

 there by M. Dumans.t 



To the south of Caen it is reported on the Mts. d'Eraines, 

 near Falaise (Calvados), by Fauvel.t with var. hellidis (a mistake 

 for hellis). M. Dupont states that at the time of the publication 

 of his paper § he had only once met with achillecs in the Eure, at 

 Deux-Amants, June 11th, 1878, in a very wasted condition. To 

 this notice he now writes {m litt.) : " To what I have said in my 

 various notices you can add the hills of Gravigny, near Evreux, 

 on the left bank of the Iton (a very good locality, where I take 

 each year Agriades thersites). Here (Les Damps) I have never 

 observed achillece except at Deux-Amants, but it is not common. 

 It is true that I cannot visit this locality often at the time of its 

 appearance, as my vacation has not then commenced." 



As to its existence further west in Brittany on the coast or 

 inland, M. Oberthiir informs me that the soil, being schistous or 

 grauitic, achilleo', is absent, in contra-distinction to those parts of 

 Normandy where it is calcareous. But, as I shall presently show, 

 achillece, like Agriades corydon, does actually occur on other than 

 calcareous formations. 



Meanwhile, as far as the species under review has any imme- 

 diate relationship with our other Scots Burnet A. exidans, I do 

 not remember to have taken them anywhere flying together, or 

 overlapping at the higher altitudes where exidans is locally 

 common enough, just as achilleie may be down to the sea level. 

 This, of course, may be accidental. The records consulted are 

 not very clear on the subject. Speaking generally, on the 

 Central Alps and Pyrenees achillecB ends where exidans begins, 

 viz. at the tree line. All the same, it is well known that exidans 



* ' Cat. des Lepids. de la Seine-Inferieure,' Eouen, 1894. 



t " Liste des Lepids. du Calvados," ' Annuaire de I'Association Normande,' 

 Caen, 1908. 



\' Les Lepids. du Calvados,' p. 64, Caen, 1863. 



* " Les Zygenes de la Normandie," ' Bull. Soc. d'Etude des Scis. Nat. d'Elbeuf,' 

 1899. 



