LAMPIDES BCETICA. 411 



Most authorities say that L. Bcetica pupates among the 

 leaves, or on the stems of its food plant, but Ruhl says in his 

 standard work " Die palaearktischen grosschmetterlinges." 

 " My experience, however, was that the butterfly emerged 

 out of some pods of Colutea arbovescens, Avhich I had gathered 

 in Zurich. The pupas take twelve days to hatch." Those 

 which I myself had under observation in Switzerland, 

 certainly pupated on the sides of the box, but circumstances 

 compelled me to keep them in too small a space to admit of 

 any fair deduction from this particular case. 



L. Bcetica seems to have a very wide distribution, in fact to 

 be almost cosmopolitan, though very uncertain in its appear- 

 ance in all the more northern localities mentioned. Hofmann 

 is very general, and says August and September in South 

 Europe, and from Asia Minor to Persia and North Africa. 

 Lang adds that "it is plentiful also at the Cape," and I have 

 been also told that it is a common butterfly in India. As is 

 natural the time of its emergence differs with the climatic 

 influences of the localities where it is found. Thus to quote 

 Ruhl again, " in the East and South-East it is observed as 

 early as March at Cairo ; at the end of April, Port Said, but 

 at Gibralter, mid- June. Kane gives June- July as general 

 dates, and in South Europe a late autumn brood August- 

 October, while Lang says simply August, September and 

 October. In England where it has been taken two or three 

 times on the South coast it has always, as in Guernsey, 

 appeared in late autumn. According to Mr. Tutt it has been 

 taken in Brighton in 1859, in the Isle of Wight, 1879, at 

 Bognor, 1880, and Bournemouth, 1882, and various other 

 rather vague records are to be found in the pages of our 

 magazines. But in Guernsey we have been treated to an 

 invasion of this interesting little blue, and its visits, though 

 very uncertain, are perhaps much more frequent than we know. 

 Might it not be possible to persuade it to become a resident ? 

 This, however, can only be done by providing a food plant, 

 It does not seem as if the seed pods of any of our native 

 Luguminosce or Papilionacece are large enough to provide a 

 domicile for the larvae, and the cultivated pea does not stand 

 through the winter, so that any autumn-laid eggs are 

 necessarily lost, and Bcetica with us becomes extinct in one 

 generation. I have written to Switzerland to obtain, if 

 possible, seed of Colutea Arborescens, and in the meanwhile 

 am going to leave my rows of scarlet runners undisturbed 

 through the winter, in the remote chance that eggs may be 

 laid upon them, or upon the sticks which support them. It is 



