SEPTEMBER 207 



quantity of the swarms in August. Queens were 

 unusually numerous in the shining months of May 

 1912 ; that there was a singular scarcity of wasps in 

 autumn may be set down to the cruelly cold and wet 

 summer which followed; but similar causes do not 

 always conduce to like results. Take, for instance, the 

 appearances of certain Lepidoptera. The summer of 

 1908 was ideal, but in that autumn we missed the 

 customary display of Red Admiral butterflies. Hardly 

 one was to be seen. In 1909 there was a more 

 abundant hatch of these fine insects than had occurred 

 since 1901. I have it noted that on 15th September I 

 set to work to count these brilliant creatures on the 

 autumnal flower-beds. Seven of them were competing 

 with bumble bees on one plant of Sedum spectabile 

 (always a special favourite with honey-lovers). A few 

 yards off five more Admirals were regaling themselves 

 on the fragrant yellow heads of Inula Hookeri, while 

 nine were busy among the long violet tassels of 

 Buddleia variabilis superba. Twenty- one of these 

 large flies within the space of a cricket pitch. How 

 came they to be able to take advantage of the splendid 

 harvest sunshine ? Spring had been bitter and back- 

 ward ; severe May frosts had told with fatal effect upon 

 much young growth, and from the middle of June till 

 the end of August there was a constant succession of 

 cold, sweeping rains, which hardly left a yoxmg partridge 

 alive. 



Well, after counting one-and-twenty Red Admirals, 

 I gave up the reckoning. They were flitting in every 

 direction, all apparently freshly freed from the chrysalis, 



