LYCAENA ARION. 351 



here, and is now, as a matter of fact, on the continent, an extremely 

 local species, occurring sometimes in a limited area of a field, or a few 

 selected corners in a long wild mountain valley, and when found out 

 of these corners, flying with great rapidity in a headlong manner as if 

 it had last its way, and was anxiously returning to its lost home. 

 Such old localities as the cliffs at Dover, the downs at Marlborough 

 and Winchester, the hills near Bath, Barnwell Wold, the steep slopes 

 at Bolt Head, the Cotswold and Cornish hills are ideal localities. 

 Mathew's description of its habitat " to the westward of Bolt Tail 

 where, between it and the next point, a slope sweeps down from the 

 brow cf the high land to the edge of the cliffs below, and where, at 

 times, when the turf is dry and slippery, it is decidedly dangerous to 

 approach too near the cliffs," might be written of its haunts at 

 Brugnasco, in the high alps of the Ticino valley, where the same set 

 of slippery slopes shelter it, among a host of other species, but where 

 the sea is hundreds of miles distant. So too, " the rough fields of 

 Polebrook, and on the outskirts of Barnwell Wold," where Bree found 

 it so abundantly, and " the corner of a rough pasture under a wood" 

 where Bond captured it, must have been very like the rough open 

 bush-strewn spaces on the Gresy hills, and the rough level river-flats 

 at Piotta, where it flies almost as freely as on the steep flower-clad 

 banks at the edge of the alder-carr, and the roadside, and which carry the 

 species here probably up the steep slopes to Brugnasco, about 1,000ft. 

 above. At Langport, Quekett found it " in a situation abounding 

 with long grass and brambles," and it was in just such a place, the 

 rough uncultivated corner of a field the greater part of which was 

 devoted to lucerne, and sloping above to a bush-covered hillside, that 

 we found it at Chavoire, just above the charming Lac d'Annecy. 

 " The long narrow valley among the Cotswold Hills" (Marsden), and 

 " the spot on the Cotswolds sheltered by a stone wall" (Merrin), where 

 they localised themselves at different times, remind one of the large 

 sheltered flower-covered wastes by the sides of the road on the Simplon, 

 where they love to swing on the flowers in the sun before hustling up 

 the steep slopes, back again to their chosen corners. These Cotswold 

 Hills, where L. avion lived, have been well described by Merrin (Ent. 

 Bee, ix., pp. 101-3), they are part of a range that extends really in a 

 broken line from Dorset to Yorkshire ; they are capped at their 

 highest points, between 800ft.-l, 000ft. above the sea, by the Great 

 Oolite, but it is the hills of the Middle and Lower Oolite here which 

 produce the greater number of insects and plants ; they present wide, 

 bare stretches of short or rough grass, with tufts of vetch, thyme, etc., 

 stone walls taking the place of hedges, with w r oods of beech, larch, 

 etc. In the debris of deserted quarry-holes, where Pyrausta purpuralis, 

 Ennychia anrjuinalis, and E. cinyidalis, flit about the flowers, where 

 Acidalia ovnata hides in the long grass, and Polyommatus icarus shelters 

 in the friendly hollows of the rough ground, L. avion sails along, 

 dipping down among the long grass, settling on a flower, etc. The 

 ground that they mostly frequent, then, consists of deserted quarries, 

 from which broken stone has been taken, the sides of the quarries 

 being left sloping, and thick grass, with the usual herbage of hills, growing 

 near. This herbage includes wild thyme, sun cistus, wild geranium, wild 

 forget-me-not, milkwort, yellow trefoil, and several species of coarse 

 grass. Even of so distant a spot as Constantinople Graves writes : — "I 



