BR. J. ENT. NAT. HIST., 7: 1994 



Fig. 1. Eurodryas aurinia Rott. ab. virgata Tutt (x 1.5 life size). 



during a 6-year period of extreme abundance of the species (1894-1899). When the 

 population stabilized aberrations were hard to find. (R. M. Craske (pers. comm.) 

 made similar observations during a population explosion of the species near Plaistow, 

 Sussex in 1945/6.) The authors attributed this phenomenon to the fact that weaker, 

 aberrant individuals would have a chance to survive to become adults during a period 

 in which the population was increasing in size from a point far below its average 

 towards its optimum size. This is because, during a period of increasing population size, 

 selection would be less intensive than when the population reached its optimum level. 



References 



Berry, R. J. 1977. Inheritance and natural history. Collins, London. 



Ford, H. D. & Ford, E. B. 1930. Fluctuations in numbers, and its influence on variation in 



Melitaea aurinia Rott. (Lepidoptera). Trans. Ent. Soc. Lond. 78: 345-351. 

 Ford, E. B. 1945. Butterflies. Collins, London. 

 Ford, E. B. 1964. Ecological genetics. Chapman and Hall, London. 

 Kettlewell, B. 1973. The evolution of melanism: the study of a recurring necessity. Oxford 



University Press. 

 Porter, K. J. 1989. Eurodryas aurinia. In: Emmet, A. M. & Heath, J. (Eds). The moths and 



butterflies of Great Britain and Ireland 7(1): 234-237. Colchester, Harley Books. 

 Robinson, R. 1971. Lepidoptera genetics. Pergamon Press, Oxford. 

 Robinson, R. 1990. Genetics of European Butterflies. In: Kudrna, O. (Ed.) Butterflies of Europe. 



Volume 2. Aula-Verlag, Wiesbaden. 



SHORT COMMUNICATION 



The white-letter hairstreak in south-east London. — One the warm and muggy 

 morning of 17.vii. 1994 a large Buddleja bush in Nunhead Cemetery, London SE15, 

 attracted only a single butterfly, a rather battered white-letter hairstreak, Strymonidia 

 w-album (Knoch). This was the first time I had encountered the species in Nunhead, 

 although a dead hairstreak caterpillar was brought to me, from the cemetery, some 

 years ago. The several hundred large English elms, Ulmus procera Salisb., which 

 punctuated the cemetery grounds were killed in the 1970s by Dutch elm disease; many 

 of their trunks still lie prostrate in wooded corners. Suckers and sapplings are 

 regenerating; they now reach about 6 m high and the disease is reappearing to kill 

 a few each year. The butterfly is obviously very local in the London area, but its 

 appearance in Nunhead (vice-county 17, "Surrey") may support ideas that it is 

 recolonizing as elms regrow. — Richard A. Jones, 13 Bellwood Road, Nunhead, 

 London SE15 3DE. 



