﻿1869. ]_]_ 



With us this butterfly haunts the lofty fir-forests, where the ground is clothed 

 with bilberry (Vaccinium myrtillus), mosses, and straggling plants of wild thyme 

 (Thymus serpyllum). It is to be met with throughout the month of July. In order 

 to obtain food, it generally resorts to the open places where T. serpyllum grows 

 more freely, and displays plenty of blossoms. There we may often meet with this 

 butterfly in company with hosts of Hipparchia Semele and Alcyone, Epinepliele 

 Lycaon (Eudora), Ccsnonympha Arcania, all quenching their thirst in the nectar 

 of the flowers of large patches of thyme. At night it reposes between the needle- 

 leaves of some fir-bush, where it may be rather easily seen. 



Spending a day (July 28th, 1857) in the Glogau Stadtforst (a locality visited 

 by Mr. Stainton two years previously, as recorded in the Entomologist's Annual 

 for 1856, p. 128), I took the opportunity in the morning, before the heat of the 

 day, to watch closely the females of Avion, which were flying slowly, and to observe 

 their doings. 



I saw them sit down on the stems of Thymus serpyllum, and, after sipping 

 from a few flowers, bend their abdomens between the flower-stalks, on which they 

 deposited a pale green egg, sometimes not without some apparent pains. I gathered 

 a score or so of twigs, each with a single egg. In the afternoon I noticed them 

 proceeding in the same manner, but 'as it was then too hot in the sunshine, the 

 oviposition was only performed under the shade of the trees. 



Now what became of these eggs ? I totally neglected them ! Having found 

 it so easy to obtain them, I postponed breeding the larvaa for some other year 

 when I should be less busy ! But from that day to this I have never obtained any 

 more eggs, and here at Meseritz the species is so scarce that I have had no oppor- 

 tunity of observing the interesting history of our largest Blue. 



I may mention, in conclusion, that, as the larvae appear to pass the winter 

 when about half-grown, it will probably be no easy work to rear them to maturity. — 

 P. C. Zellek, Meseritz, March 29th, 1869. 



Notes on the food-plant of Lyccena Corydon and Ccenonympha Davus. — With 

 respect to the notices given in this pex-iodical (vol. iii., p. 70 and 91) on this 

 subject, I beg to make the following remarks . — 



In the Stettiner Entomologische Zeitung for 1852, p. 125, I published a 

 detailed natural history of L. Corydon, and stated that its food-plant is Coronilla 

 varia. This is most certainly the case in the neighbourhood of Frankfort-on-the- 

 Oder, Glogau, and Meseritz, where there is neither chalk nor Hippocrepis comosa. 

 In the higher parts of Carinthia the latter plant is likely to be fed upon by L. 

 Corydon, for there the Hippocrepis grows in the greatest profusion in all the meadows 

 where the butterfly occurs, and no Coronilla (excepting, I believe, C. Emerus). 

 During the first years of my residence at Meseritz I saw no Corydon, and few plants 

 of C. varia ; but as the northern roadway became older, the plant became more 

 frequent, thus last year, not far from the town, I was gladdened with the sight of 

 a few Corydon, which no doubt had followed the spread of its food-plant. 



I add a few words on the food-plant of C. Davus. In England it is stated to 

 be Rhynchospora alba; I indicated a Carex with long and narrow leaves. It is 

 possible that with us the larva may feed on the Rhynchospora, but this plant I have 

 not as yet found only on one peat-swamp, which I have never visited in summer, 



