288 BRITISH BUTTERFLIES. 



end of May, 1909, at Southsea and Ventnor (Sperring) ; June 27th,. 



1909, at Lewes, August 11th, 1909, at Keigate, September 20th, 1909,. 

 at Folkestone (Hodgson) ; August 6th, 1909, at Kinloch Rannoch. 

 (Jackson) ; September 11th, 1909, at Folkestone, one newly emerged 

 (Bell); June 4th, 1910, on the Chilterns (Rowland-Brown); June 19th, 



1910, at Folkestone, two only (Bell) ; July 9th, 1910, on Nigg Sutor, 

 August 8th, 1910, at Tarbat Ness, worn (Jackson); July 12th, 1911, 

 at Braemar (James); September 30th-October 3rd, 1911, at Birchington 

 (Bernhard Smith). 



Habitats. — The habitats of this species are as varied as those of 

 Polyoinmatus icarus. In Britain, as elsewhere, they include hillsides, 

 especially in chalk and limestone districts, open meadows, disused 

 quarries, sandhills, seaside cliffs and narrow valleys running down to 

 the sea, heaths, open downs, cornfields, marshy spots both in flat and 

 hilly country, roadsides, railway banks, the borders of woods, and even 

 the woods themselves, especially at the side of grass rides or in clear- 

 ings where flowers abound, and occasionally gardens. It is however 

 far less abundant* and more local than the last species, and in 

 districts where the larva feeds on Helianthemum , it seems to be con- 

 fined to the spots in which the plant is found. Amongst other state- 

 ments to this effect may be quoted a communication made by Dr. 

 Jordan to the Zoologist so far back as 1844. He says : " I took it in 

 considerable plenty in Bradley Woods, near Newton, Devon, settling 

 on the flowers of Helianthemum vulgare, though I did not see a 

 single specimen till I came to the rock where this plant was 

 growing." Wailes, who quotes the above passage, also gives 

 extracts from letters written to him by Cooke and Gregson, the 

 former of whom, writing from Brighton, says : " I have never taken 

 agestis except in localities where the Helianthemum grows freely,"" 

 while the latter, who had collected the species in North Lancashire, 

 Cheshire, Derbyshire, Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and Wales, makes the 

 same observation in practically the same words. Similarly Walker,, 

 who used to take it on a rocky limestone hill overhanging the Talargoch 

 mine, and on rocky ground about three miles from Holywell (Flint), 

 remarks that at Rhyl and Prestatyn, where Erodium ciocutarium, 

 abounds on the sandhills, there are no medon. "■ So closely" he adds 

 " does this insect stick to the spot where Helianthemum grows, that in 

 an open place, about 200 yards from the small space where it is found, 

 which swarms with Aphantopun hyperanthus, Argynnis aylaia and 

 Polyommatus icarus, I have never seen a single specimen." This 

 species frequently shows a predilection for rocky ground. Jordan 



* I have taken this species in central and southern England, on the French 

 Eiviera, throughout Switzerland at all altitudes at which it occurs, and in many 

 localities in northern and central Italy, but I have never seen as many as half-a- 

 dozen specimens at a time, unless possibly at Sulmona; — a great contrast to the 

 numbers in which Polyommatus icarus, Agriades coridon, A. thetis, Plebius argus 

 (aegon), and Cupido minimus may be seen both in England and abroad, or Plebeius 

 argyrognomon, Lutiorina orbitulus, Hirsulina daman, or in some few places- 

 Cupido osiris (sebrus) and Polyommatus eras in Switzerland, or P. argus, P. 

 argyrognovwn, Polyommatus mcleager, and Scolitantides baton in many parts of 

 Italy. There are, of course, many records of the present species being found in 

 abundance, but I cannot believe that my experience, spread over many years and 

 a wide area, can be unique. — (G. W.). 



