THE DISAPPEARING PARARGE AEGERIA. 123 
of Tring, on both sides of the border line separating Herts from Bucks. 
But most of the records are getting ancient, dating back to the 
‘eighties,’ and the last observation of the appearance of the Speckled 
Wood butterfly in our county I can hear of was of a solitary straggler 
in 1912 or 1913. Mr. A.T. Goodson writes me under date of February 
18th, 1916 :—‘L netted a single specimen two or three years ago near 
Daneer’s End, but owing to it being a female I liberated it, as it was 
getting so scarce.’ Mr. Goodson has not again met with it at this spot, 
which is one of the most likely places in which to look for it. He tells 
me it was not rare on the Bucks border up to the year 1899. He 
searched vainly for it in the years 1901 and 1902. Another spot where 
it used to occur in some abundance was the second hollow way near 
Tring, but it has also disappeared from that locality. I have failed to 
learn that the insect is still to be found at Stevenage. The large 
stretches of woodland in that part of the country might still afford it 
a home, but the naturalists in the district do not appear to have seen 
it recently ; indeed, Mr. H. A. Leeds, of Knebworth, tells me that he 
has not met with egerides in the county. I fear, too, that it has gone 
from its old haunts at Haileybury. It used to occur on the Roman 
road, and it is shown in the 1902 edition of the School List as being 
represented by specimens in the Haileybury Museum. Mr. L. E. B. 
Wimbush, who until recently did much good entomological work in 
the neighbourhood of the School, informs me that the species has not 
been seen for many years. Dr. A. H. Foster, who has collected at 
Hitchin from boyhood, has never met with egerides, but he has seen 
specimens taken by Messrs. Grellet in Wain Wood, near Preston about 
twelve years ago. In the neighbouring county of Bucks egerides is still 
to be found, especially in the extreme northern parts, on the North- 
ants border. Mr. Rowland-Brown found the species quite common in 
1909 or 1910 in a wood in which Leptosia sinapis also occurred, and he 
says it actually swarmed in May, 1910, and May, 1914, in another wood 
rather more in Northants. He also informs me that while it is well 
distributed in Buckinghamshire it is never common in the beech woods 
of the central region; and in an article in a recent number of the Hnto- 
moloyist he expresses the opinion that it is disappearing from this area, 
It was reported from the Oxhey Woods in the late ‘ eighties,’ but he 
had not the good fortune to meet with it himself.” 
I have recently returned from a short holiday in South Devon, 
where I found the species to be fairly common and widely spread. I 
took my first walk in that county on Good Friday morning, 
April 21st, when I saw egerides in fine condition. My last country 
walk was on Monday, May 8th, a windy morning with intermittent 
periods of sunshine and shadow, and in the hollow lanes where there 
was shelter from the wind I took several specimens. Dr. R. C. L. 
Perkins kindly gave me a number of aeyeria which he had captured, 
and he tells me that the insect is common both in spring and summer. 
The first brood, or at any rate a partial brood, appears as early as 
about the 20th March. These specimens have comparatively brilliant 
fuscous spots, and are the nearest approach to the true aegeria of 
Linneus as found in the South of Europe, that I have seen in 
Britain. Indeed the brood flying in April and May are also strongly 
marked, and might almost be called ab. intermedia. I have a series 
of both the spring and summer generations before me as I write. It 
