( cxxix ) 



zigzag flight being admirably elusive, for no collector, whether 

 human or avian, can tell whether the next flit will be right or 

 left, above or below.* 



Habits of displai/. 

 On a very hot day last August I watched for an hour the 

 evolutions of butterflies in a flowery field at Glengarriff in 

 Kerry. Vanessa io was plentiful — I counted at one time seven 

 within a space of ten feet square, chiefly settling on thistles, and 

 making short flights from one flower to another, with frequent 

 visits to scabious and rare visits to ragwort. There were 

 also a few Fyrameis atalanta and P. cardici, with an occasional 

 Argynnis paphia, and a fair number of Lycoenids and Satyrids. 

 There was not one of the species observed whose attitude or 

 position when settled on a flower or mode of flight was not 

 quite distinctive. V. io especially always had its wings at an 

 angle towards each other of a few degrees on either side of 90°. 

 These insects were extraordinarily conspicuous, much more 

 so than they would have been with their wings closed, as they 

 would have been when at rest, or with wings outspread, as they 

 were when on a cloudier day they settled on roads or stones. 

 They wei'e very bold, not moving when my shadow fell across 

 them or when my fingers approached to touching distance. I 

 will not pretend to say that they were in high animal spirits 

 and were proud of the figure they cut, but they certainly 

 looked as if they were so. 



Times of flight. 



Time of flight is a habit that varies greatly, t Much the 



larger number of our Lepidoptera, as we all know, do not take 



to flight in full daylight, and in their hours of flight there is 



great variation. Let me mention a few of these, variations. 



* Differences in modes of flight are of course often associated with 

 peculiar forms of wing. 



t We are ajit to speak of day fliers and night fliers, but this is a very 

 rough classification. As a rule, brightly-coloured Lepidoptera no doubt fly 

 only in strong daylight, many only when the sun is shining. There are 

 exceptions on both sides ; Arclia caja and Euchelia Jacob eeee. sometimes fly 

 by night, the former indeed scarcely ever by day ; it lies about conspicu- 

 ously by day, and is probably protected by the powerful odour it can emit. 

 Its near relatives, Callimorpha dominula and Nemcopldla plantaginis, 

 appear to fly only, or almost only, by day ; many moths ol no brilliancy 

 of colour fly by day, and preferably in sunshine, often only during certain 

 hours. These include the large full-bodied moths, the Lasiocanipids, 

 Endromis versicolor and Aglia tail. 



