CATCHING BUTTERFLIES AND MOTHS 77 



and from this time you can find employment up to the end of 

 September or the beginning of October a period of about seven 

 months. But it must not be supposed that all parts of this long 

 season are equally prolific, and will yield equally valuable catches. 

 Remember the short term of a butterfly's life, and bear in mind 

 that each one has its own regular season in which to spend the 

 winged state ; you will then see that anyone who wishes to ' work ' 

 as many species as possible must arrange his outings in accordance 

 with the insects' own times. 



Some butterflies are double-brooded, and the two broods may 

 not come forth at certain fixed times. Hence they seem to be on 

 the wing almost without cessation for several months together, and 

 therefore need not have a special day set apart for them. But 

 others are more uniform in their date of appearance, and die off at 

 about the same time. To catch such as these you must be careful 

 to watch the weather, make allowance for any severities that may 

 tend to cause a delay, or an unusually high temperature that may 

 hasten their emergence, and then select a day in which you may 

 expect to find them fresh and unworn. A week too early, and none 

 are to be seen ; a week too late, and nearly all you catch are worn 

 and worthless. 



A glanc-e at our Calendar (Appendix II) will give you a few 

 illustrations in point. Thus you will observe that May is a month 

 for the ' Whites,' early ' Blues ' and certain of the Fritillaries ; 

 July for most of the Hairstreaks and Browns, and so on. Before 

 you have been long collecting you will have captured the very 

 common species, and then you will find that your butterfly hunts 

 are very unproductive unless you make it a point to try for certain 

 species at the proper times. 



Time, however, is not the only thing to take into account when 

 preparing for a day with the butterflies. It is equally important 

 that we should carefully select our locality in accordance with the 

 known haunts of the various species. As long as you are simply 

 working up the common kinds, you may wander almost at random 

 in waste places, flowery meadows, corn fields, railway banks, &c. ; 

 but when you have secured a few specimens of each of these, you 

 must search out the favoured resorts of the more local and the 

 rarer species. For instance, wooded spots must be visited if you 

 are to take certain of the Fritillaries, oak woods for the Purple 

 Emperor and the Purple Hairstreak, fenny districts for the beau- 

 tiful Swallow-tail, and so forth. In some cases the butterflies are 



