16 THE ENTOMOLOGIST S RECORD. 



I am afraid Mr. Hamm, like a good many other people, underrates- 

 the intelligence of birds, and I should have liked him to have been 

 present when I watched the pair of Stoneehats taking Ayriades coridon 

 at rest on long grass {Ent. Record, July- August, 1911). They did not 

 bother about the orange spots on the hindwings or the most vulnerable 

 point, but simply cleared off the butterflies, ^ and 2 , as fast as they 

 could. The House Sparrows at Heme Bay [Ent. Record, July-August^ 

 1911), taking Epinephele jurtina, did not bother about eye spots or 

 variations of the undersides, but snapped up the butterflies as fast as 

 they could. I do not attach the importance that Mr. Hamm does to the 

 "injuries such as enemies would inflict, which have been frequently 

 observed near the anal angle of the hindwing," and would refer him to 

 my remarks on the subject in the Ent. Record, vol. xxvi., p. 165. 



On the 2nd of July, this year, I went for an evening walk over one 

 of the New Forest heaths, and came across a scattered colony of Plebeiiis- 

 aegon at rest. The sun had just set, and the majority of the butterflies 

 were resting on the heather head downward, some, however, were rest- 

 ing with their wings parallel with the earth, and seven were resting 

 head upward, these latter were more or less worn. 



Unfortunately, on account of the war, I had no camera with me, 

 and I also had no opportunity of making observations after dark, having 

 no lamp for the same reason. 



In pill-boxing some specimens I noticed that in a number of cases- 

 they were more wide awake than P. tear us. On the approach of the 

 pillbox they jerked themselves off the twig on which they were resting 

 and if they landed in the pill box lay on their sides, and remained 

 motionless. If, however, they landed in the heather they immediately 

 wound their way through the twigs to the ground, where they remained 

 motionless on their sides on the brown earth, and were quite easy to 

 see. On the following evening I again visited the ground with a friend 

 who is a believer in Protective Resemblance, but he had to admit that 

 P. aegon were quite easy to see on the dark heather. — C. W. Colthrup, 

 103, Woodwarde Road, E. Dulwich, S.E. Xovember Ath, 1916. 



The "Carrying" habits of the sexes in paired butterflies. — 

 I have taken an interest in this subject for some years, and made obser- 

 vations, some of which I have recorded in the Ent. Record. 



When a ? of a species carries the S' all my subsequent observations 

 have confirmed the assumption that it is a fixed rule with that species. 

 Further, from observations on Epinephele jiirtina, E. tithonus and Coe- 

 nonympha pamphilns, in all of which the $ carries the 3" , I had almost- 

 come to the conclusion that where one species was observed in which 

 the 5 carried the ^ or vice versa, it would be found that all the nearly 

 allied members of the family would follow the same rule. In the case 

 of the " blues," repeated observations have shown that in both Agriades- 

 coridon and Polyommatus icarus the ^ carries the 2 . On reading the 

 Rev. G. Wheeler's note on the above subject {antea, p. 204) I referred 

 to my notes and found that his observations on E. jurtina agreed with 

 mine. Unfortunately I have no records of my own of either Argynni^ 

 aglaia or A, cydippe (adippe) flying//; cop, but the fact that in both these 

 species the ? carried the <? seemed to bear out my suggestion in 

 reference to nearly related species. On referring to the Ent. Record^ 

 vol. xiii., p. 298, I was surprised to find that the late J. W. Tutt stated 

 that " whilst on the Mendelstrasse, in August, 1895, I repeatedly ob- 



