212 BRITISH BUTTERFLIES. 



loves to settle on flowers of Ajuga reptans in the ridings of our woods ; 

 a similar preference having been noted, 60 years before, in the forest 

 of Raismes, near Valenciennes, by Duponchel. 



Habitat. — In Britain, the species is exceedingly local, confined to 

 a few counties, chiefly in the midlands, its occurrence outside these 

 being unusual and unexpected. It appears particularly to prefer the 

 ridings of woods, or the fields in their immediate neighbourhood, and, 

 in its Lincolnshire strongholds, one reads of its preference for the 

 ridings of Legsby Woods (Court), of Wragby Woods (Raynor), etc. 

 It is also noted as occurring in a wood at Uppingham (Kaye). 

 Raynor says that, in the Lincolnshire woods, between Lincoln and 

 Wragby, it haunts the ridings or rough roads through the woods that 

 are cut through the undergrowth, the margin of which, on each side, 

 consists chiefly of lime, oak, sallow, birch and hazel. Although the 

 imagines may be found in the smaller grass-grown paths intersecting 

 the ridings at right angles, he has never, himself, found it on the 

 outskirts of the woods, and feels tolerably sure that it does not frequent 

 them. It is common in the forests of the North of France, and in 

 clearings and ridings of damp woods (Duponchel), extremely abundant 

 in the forest of Rennes (Oberthur), in rather elevated woods around 

 Autun (Constant), in the arid woods of the lowlands of Alsace 

 (Peyerimhoff) , and flies commonly among the herbage in damp spots, 

 near woods, in the neighbourhood of the Certosa di Pesio (Norris) . Around 

 Geneva, this species occurs either on very rough ground, e.g., mountain 

 gorges, or, in the plains near, or on, the paths through woods consisting 

 mostly of scrub-oak, and meadows not far from the same (Muschamp). 

 Usually it is noted as occurring in the lower valleys of the mountains 

 of Central Europe, but failing in the higher mountains, e.g., at Baden, 

 Alsace, etc., yet it is recorded as being abundant in the woods and damp 

 fields about the Glacier de Trient (Favre), and on the Maloja (Frey). 

 Miss Fountaine found it on the top of the Maloja Pass, on some 

 marshy ground at the foot of the mountains there, facing south, 

 whilst Wheeler says that, in Switzerland, it is generally distributed in 

 grassy woods, but very seldom common, also occurring in the lowlands 

 and hills, and in some places reaching to the mountains. It occurs 

 in a wood on the sides of Mount Besimauda, near the Certosa di 

 Pesio (Lowe), in the mountain valleys of the Enns district of Austria 

 (Brittinger) , the Saas valley (Jones), the lovely Anzasca valley 

 (Lowe), the Rilska valley in Bulgaria (Nicholl), and the Oythal in the 

 Allgau Alps (Dadd). The neighbourhood of woods, however, is its 

 more usual habitat, and Miss Fountaine notes it as occurring in the 

 Szaar, a large forest about 80 kilometres from Budapest ; Duponchel 

 says that it is abundant in the forest of Raismes, near Valenciennes, 

 flying in the ridings and clearings of the woods, resting very 

 frequently on flowers of Ajuga reptans. In Hanover, in meadows by 

 the sides of woods (Glitz) ; at Aix-la-Chapelle, in the Burtscheid and 

 Aachen woods (Stollwerck) ; in meadows near woods near Barmen, 

 and in open woods near Elberfeld (Weymer) ; on the borders 

 of the woods between Kloppenheim and Igstadt, and in the Mombach 

 wood, on wooded slopes facing south near Wiesbaden (Bossier) ; in 

 the ridings of woods near Hanau (Limpert) ; open places in woods 

 near Giessen (Glaser) ; in open places in wooded districts in the 

 Wetterau and the Taunus (Koch) ; in grassy openings, and on the 



