IN SEARCH OF RUSSIAN BUTTERFLIES. 315 



As a supplement to the above note, I may mention the fact 

 that H. atriplicis was formerly quite a common moth round 

 Wicken : one good spot was a plantation close to the village 

 itself. Mr. Bond told me that on one occasion he had been 

 on the Fen all the evening, returning to the well-known 

 * Five Miles ' Inn about midnight, very tired ; it being a very 

 warm night he opened the windows, placed a light near them 

 and went off to sleep ; awaking when it was broad daylight he 

 found Noctuse sticking " all about the walls and ceiling, most of 

 them atriplicis." From a female taken at sugar June 11th, 1877, 

 I obtained three eggs and succeeded in rearing one imago which 

 emerged on June 15th, the following year ; I fed the larva on 

 knotgrass. It was in this latter year that I last saw the long 

 extinct Lcelia coenosa. On August 6th I took a male and Albert 

 Houghton another, flying, or rather "fluttering," with their 

 characteristically soft flight up and down the glass sides of the 

 lamp. Messrs. Porritt and Daltry took the very last (recorded) 

 specimens, I believe, in the following year (Entom. xi. 229). 

 Wanstead : November 10th, 1914. 



AN EXPEDITION IN SEAECH OF RUSSIAN 



BUTTERFLIES. 



By W. G. Sheldon, F.E.S. 



(Concluded from p. 297.) 



Hipparchia scmele. — First seen on June 6th, and shortly after- 

 wards became abundant everywhere. 



Pararge climcne. — This species, which is not known to extend 

 further west than the Carpathians, and which is rare in the one or 

 two localities in which it is found in those mountains, occurs in the 

 utmost profusion at Sarepta ; I saw, but did not capture, a single 

 example on May 31st in a cross valley in the hills some four miles 

 north-w^est of the town. At the same spot, when next I visited it on 

 June 5th, P. climene was flying in profusion; on this day only males 

 were seen. The next day they were almost equally abundant in the 

 " Tschapurnik Wald," and we afterwards found them in every spot 

 in which there was any quantity of wood. The first females were 

 seen on June 11th. This butterfly frequents the outskirts of woods ; 

 the male has a very cjniiephelc-like flight, and on the wing closely 

 resembles E. jurtina. It is continuously hovering over and searching 

 amongst bushes for the females. These latter are not easy to find or 

 secure; they seem, one presumes, after pairing to hide away from the 

 males, and are to be kicked up out of small clumps of bushes some 

 distance away from the larger woods that the males frequent. I did 

 not see a single female flying naturally ; probably they would fly late 

 in the day, when I was never on the ground. When disturbed they 

 would, if not netted, quickly settle again in the thickest part of a 



