RUMICIA PHL.EAS. 405 



much the same fashion as the "blues," without being quite so exploring, 

 the nights seem to be shorter and more rushing, and it will often drive 

 away an insect larger than itself. In the alpine valleys of central 

 Europe it occasionally visits the runnels by the wayside, with the 

 numerous other species found in such situations, but its visits are rare, 

 even more so than those of Heodes virgaureae, which also is never 

 attracted to the same extent as are the " blues," Erebiids, and some 

 "skippers." Mathew observes that, on one occasion, he visited the 

 Island of Pachalimon, one of a group in the Sea of Marmora, and the 

 immense swarms of phlaeas there were very remarkable. It was a 

 terribly hot day, and the butterflies had collected in shady spots in the 

 ravines where the sun could not penetrate; a blow with a beating- 

 stick brought them out of the bushes by hundreds, and he had often 

 more than a dozen in his net at a time. The examples were very dark 

 of the eleus form. It is, however, as a rule, a lover of the sun, and 

 Swinton observes that, at Jerusalem, the insect haunts the roadsides, 

 flying away and returning to settle on the sunny ground or the wall of 

 a vineyard. In Britain it is certainly an active insect, haunting 

 flowers of various kinds, e.g., Thymus serpyllum, at Cuxfeon (Tutt), 

 Eupatorium cannabinum, at Tintern (J. F. Bird), sea-holly, in company 

 with Pyrameis cardui and Plusia gamma, on the sand-dunes of Yarmouth 

 and Lowestoft (Lockyer), flowers of scabious at Abertillery (Rait- Smith), 

 lavender at Clevedon (Mason), etc. We have seen as many as a dozen or a 

 score od a single small patch of thyme in full blossom in early August, at 

 Cuxton and Hailing. Smallman observes (in litt.) that, "unlike Poly- 

 ommatus icarus, Pt. pldaeas is found as commonly in the garden as in the 

 meadow, and it is found at almost all flowers, especially those belonging to 

 the Compositae. B. phlaeas has a much stronger flight than P. icarus, 

 and is, therefore, much more difficult to catch, but when it settles 

 it often remains on the same flower for two or three minutes at a 

 stretch. This species usually settles on the upper flowers or on 

 the top of the grass unless the sun is obscured when it generally 

 settles close to the ground, still, one may often find it sunning 

 itself on a closely-cut lawn or on gravel paths, in which latter 

 position it is very difficult to see when it has its wings closed. This 

 butterfly invariably settles with its head higher than, or on the same 

 level as, the rest of its body and with the wings fairly well open, the 

 latter being kept at about an angle of 135° with each other, whilst the 

 antennae are kept parallel with the wings. The head is usually kept 

 directly away from the sun, but, when feeding, this butterfly has a 

 habit of slowly turning round and round on a flower, and always, as 

 far as my observations go, from right to left. Although the wings 

 are usually kept at an angle of 135° with each other, still one often 

 sees specimens with the wings more closed, and the butterfly at times 

 slowly opens and shuts its wings when settled. When the wings are 

 widely opened, as mentioned above, the hind margins of the hindw 7 ings 

 are wrapped round the body and the forewings are kept very forward, 

 so that there is a considerable space between the fore- and hind- 

 wings, but the more erect the wings are kept the less space there is 

 between the fore- and hindwings. Like P. icarus, Pi. phlaeas usually 

 closes its wings on the sun going behind a cloud." Watching an example 

 sunning itself on a clump of what looked like a white-flowered 

 marjoram in full bloom, at Digne, in mid-August, 1906, we observed 



