74 
observing, as from catching, Lepidoptera, and I hope in some small 
measure, at least, I have profited by the knowledge. It is not, how- 
ever, of the habits of Lepidoptera in general that I would now 
speak, but of one particular habit, which probably every one has 
observed, viz. the fondness for water—in various degrees of purity 
and impurity—exhibited by many species of Lepidoptera. 
One of the first observations of this kind that I remember having 
made was the persistent and regular habit exhibited by Preris rape 
and P. brassice of following the water-carts along the streets, settling 
on the wet patches, and greedily imbibing the moisture. On one 
occasion in the busy streets of Greenwich, on another in the streets 
of Deal, I saw them in dozens busily engaged in this manner. In 
Susa (in Piedmont), during the last summer, little congeries of P. rape, 
ten or twenty in number, would rise from a puddle by the side of a 
road, or from a wall through which the irrigating water from the vine- 
yards was oozing. Years ago I remember being delighted with the 
sight of a little band of Polyommatus corydon, all males, congregated 
round a small puddle on the footpath on the cliffs near the South 
Foreland lighthouse. Still it must be confessed that the habit is, in 
this country, rarely sufficiently well marked to attract the attention of 
the casual observer. 
When one commences to collect Lepidoptera abroad, especially in 
Alpine districts, one soon recognises what a large number of species 
are to be taken in the neighbourhood of a running stream. One may 
also disturb many species from the stones lying dry in the bed of a 
shallow stream, and one may frequently observe little swarms of blue 
butterflies of various species rising from the runnels that so fre- 
quently cross an Alpine track, or from puddles left by the rain or 
formed by any other cause. Many species frequent the filthy streams 
that run from a manure heap, whilst others may be found on ordure in 
the most unexpected places. Seated on the banks of a little streamlet, 
near Digne, towards the end of April last (1897) with Dr. Chapman and 
Mr. Edwards, I was astonished at the number of species and indivi- 
duals that made their way down the course of the stream. It was a 
veritable highway for Huch/oé cardamines, for Leucophasia sinapts, for 
L. duponchelt, and Goneptervx rhamni, whilst the males of omzades 
cydlarus, true to the instincts of the race, sat on the stones and 1m- 
bibed most freely in the hot sunshine. In August, 1896, whilst col 
lecting in Dauphiné, I witnessed a sight which, for mere numbers of - 
specimens, I had never before, nor since, seen equalled. This I have 
already recorded (“ Ent. Record,” ix, pp. 80, 81), but it will bear 
repetition : 
‘“On the pathway between Bourg d’Oisans and Bourg d’Aru, well 
up the Vénéon Valley, on a wet spot about a square yard in extent, I 
saw at the same time 3 Papilio podalirius, 1 EHuvanessa antiopa, 2 
Leucophasia sinapis, and hundreds of /Polyommatus damon and 
P.corydon, with a few P. dellargus, and P. astrarche. ‘Vhe damp 
ground was just one seething mass of insect life, the different shades 
