44 BRITISH BUTTERFLIES. 



fluenced by an eye for the picturesque and romantic 

 in the choice of their favourite haunts. Often have I 

 been disappointed in this way, finding a delicious spot, 

 basking in sunshine, and bedight with all manner of 

 flowers such as a butterfly loves, yet with scarcely a 

 stray butterfly to enliven it ; while, on the other hand, 

 a piece of the most unpromising flat waste land will 

 be all alive with insect beauty. Those, for example, 

 who would see those splendid creatures, the Swallow- 

 tail butterfly and the large Copper (if this exists with 

 us at all now), must go to the dreary fen districts that 

 form their almost exclusive haunts. 



It is, in fact, very hard to say what influences bring 

 a swarm of butterflies together, to populate one parti- 

 cular spot, to the utter neglect of others close at hand, 

 and, to all appearance, just as eligible. 



Some species are most remarkable for their excessive 

 localness (as it is called), or, limiting their range to an ex- 

 ceedingly small circumscribed space ; so much so, that 

 some rare species have been known to haunt just one 

 corner of one particular field, year after year, while not a 

 single specimen could be found in all the neighbouring 

 fields, though precisely similar, to all appearance. This 

 phenomenon is quite inexplicable with regard to insects 

 endowed so pre-eminently with locomotive powers as 

 butterflies are. 



The local nature of his game should, however, induce 

 the collector to leave no nook or corner unexplored 

 when he is "working" a district; as the passing over 



