BUTTERFLY FLIGHT 



i7i I 



looking little butterfly. It appears irregularly, but very 

 abundantly in certain years in its special haunts, which are 

 warm and sheltered oak woods, or copses with oaks as 

 standards. It plays in flocks about the oak boughs in bright 

 weather, mimicking on a small scale the soaring of the purple 

 emperor, and bickering with almost the spirit of the small 

 copper. 



The hairstreaks are a tree-loving race, and the white- 

 letter hairstreak, which appears more locally and irregularly 



PURPLE HAIRSTREAKS 



in July, is specially attached to the wych-elm. It is 

 not always found haunting this tree. A few days after 

 emergence some hairstreaks have a way of migrating in a 

 flock to a different level in the woodland ; the purple hair- 

 streak, for example, may come down from the upper boughs 

 of an oak to the top of the ash saplings beneath it. So the 

 white-letter hairstreaks may be found fluttering round a 

 hazel or some other bush in a hedge, and summer after 

 summer may see them in the same place. None the less 

 they have been bred on a wych-elm, and a tree of this kind 

 will generally be found not many dozen yards away. The 



