1888.] 83 



Chrysophanus Phlceas, L. — About eighteen years ago, I met with 

 several specimens — probably, half a dozen — at one time, on a grassy 

 slope at the foot of one of the heather covered hills on the border of 

 Susses and Surrey, all of which had the coppery portion of the fore- 

 wings decidedly suffused with blackish scales. A lady staying in the 

 neighbourhood took others at the same place. All were found in the 

 space of a few hundred yards or less, in a hollow of the hill-side, and 

 although the insect was everywhere common, no similar specimens 

 were seen in any other part of that district, or at any other time. 

 But last summer I found the same form on a boggy heath within a few 

 miles of Lynn ; I could not get to the place in the earlier part of the 

 day, but swept a few specimens of this butterfly from the grasses and 

 rushes in which they were sleeping in the evening, of which several 

 were more or less dark, and one — of the normal colour — had the black 

 spots doubly wedge-shaped. The butterfly was common all over the 

 district, but these varieties occurred only in a few yards of wet ground. 

 A single specimen of a most striking aberration, having the hind- 

 wings entirely black, and the fore-wings very broadly black-margined, 

 and with the usual row of black spots nearly obsolete, was found in a 

 lane close to another heath. 



Lyccena Alexis, Hb., Icarus, Eott. — The form of the female, in 

 which the wings are much suffused with blue, is not confined to the 

 western districts, though certainly commoner in them. I have taken 

 it in Surrey, but more frequently in Pembrokeshire ; a specimen from 

 the extreme north of Ireland is curiously dashed with white. 



Syriclitlius alveolus, Hb., malvce, Hw. — I can vouch for one British 

 example of the ab. Taras, as I took it myself more than thirty years 

 ago in a large quarry on one of the limestone hills of Shropshire, and 

 have it still. It must be very rare with us. 



The general principles deducible from such observations as these 

 must wait for further material, but some slight evidence of influences 

 which may have tended to produce variation seems to indicate itself. 

 In one species temperature seems to be influential, in another altitude, 

 in several others the vicinity of the sea, and in still more, climate — 

 increased rainfall or diminished sunshine. 



But the influences which can cause a whole brood (apparently) to 

 exhibit a particular tendency, yet not to transmit it to any descendants, 

 are as obscure and difficult to arrive at as those which produce single 

 and startling aberrations. Perhaps disease has a good deal to do with 

 it ; perhaps more exuberant health ; most likely neither. 



King's Lynn, Norfolk : 

 July, 1888. 



