ADOPiEA LINEOLA. 103 



Essex, where it is not mixed with A. flava (thavmas), but as one ascends 

 the hills towards Hadleigh, the latter species becomes common and the 

 former comparatively rare (Tugwell). James corroborates this state- 

 ment, except that he found A. lineola in the greatest profusion with 

 A. flava (thawnas) round Hadleigh Castle in July, 1897, although, as 

 in the former case, all the specimens obtained on the seawall were A. 

 lineola. In Kent, the Thames marshes between Gravesend and Cliffe, 

 and the Medway marshes below Strood, where the insect is also 

 abundant, are not unlike the Essex haunts. It is not, however, in 

 Essex confined to the sea-coast, for Spiller records it as abundant in 

 Essex in 1885 and 1887 in clover fields, also settling on flowers in corn- 

 fields and occasionally occurring in grassy lanes (Ent., xxiii., p. 56), 

 whilst Whittle found it commonly in a field some three miles from the 

 river-marshes near Southend, where it is abundant ; Eaynor states that the 

 imagines, in great numbers, settle on the flowers of lucerne, which A. 

 flava also frequents, at Hazeleigh, etc., and Whittle observes that, 

 although, in the Southend district, the species some fifteen years ago 

 appeared to be confined to the seawall and adjacent marshes, it now goes 

 far inland, e.g., a rough field outside Carpenter's Wood at Hadleigh, 

 July 12th, 1899, on Thundersley Common, July 30th, 1902, by the 

 roadside at North Fambridge, July 15th, 1904, also on the roadside at 

 Childerditch, a good many miles from the river, and near Lower 

 Warley, July 19th, 1904 ; at Mucking it prefers the hillsides. Nash 

 reports it in woods and lanes near Bedford, whilst on Burwell Fen, 

 in rough sedgy places, the species is not at all uncommon. Lowe 

 notes it as most abundant in the meadows above Grindelwald, and 

 Wheeler in the meadows and roads of the Va.lais up to more than 

 5000 ft. and it appears to reach a considerable elevation in its mountain 

 haunts. Mrs. Nicholl reports it at 3000ft. -5000ft. on Mount Hermon, 

 and Swinton on the top of the Mount of Olives, near Jerusalem, 

 whilst we ourselves have found it in abundance not only in all the 

 clearings of the larch forest above Abries, but right up on the slopes of 

 the Crete de la Keychasse, at almost 7000ft. elevation, and, on flowery 

 banks at Le Lautaret, in the Dauphiny Alps, it reaches an almost equal 

 elevation ; we have found it high up on the moraines of the Meije glacier 

 (as well as on the roadside a mile below La Grave), on the slopes above 

 the Chapeau, on the moraines of. the Mer de Glace ; it abounds also in 

 the flowery openings of the woods of Mont de la Saxe, as also on the 

 dry flowery hill-slopes at Mendel Pass and Cortina; at Mendel, indeed, 

 it was, with Urbicola comma, exceedingly abundant, careering over the 

 flower-clad slopes of the mountains everywhere. In Tuscany it abounds 

 locally, but always in dry places. 



Habits. — The imagines of A. lineola, like those of its neighbours, rest 

 with their wings held vertically over the back, but, when sunning, they 

 settle with their backs to the sun, letting down at once all their wings till 

 the forewings make an angle of about 45° from the vertical plane of the 

 back. They then lower the hindwings till quite horizontal, there being 

 quite an angle of 45° between the upperside of the hind wing and the 

 underside of the fore wing. They have also a habit of flying rapidly 

 among the long grass, on which their larvae live, without coming often 

 above the grass tops. At other times they flit swiftly from flower to 

 flower on sloping flow 7 ery banks, whilst, yet again, they will settle 

 down, with their wings over their back on a thistle or Centaurea flower, 



