igzi. 



Johnson. --.Vo^^s on Leptdoptera in 1920. 



li 



NOTES ON LEPIDOPTERA IN 1920. 



BY REV. W. F. JOHNSON, M.A., F.E.S. 



The past year was not a good one for Lepidoptera, nor 

 indeed for insects in general, for it was on the whole a wet 

 year, and we had practically no summer. There were line 

 days, it is. true, but they were, like angels' visits, few and 

 far between. It could not be expected under such depressing 

 weather conditions, that butterflies should abound, and 

 they did not. 



Usually the first fine days at the end of March or 

 beginning of April are heralded by the appearance on the 

 wing of the Small Tortoiseshell Butterfly, but this year 

 the first to appear on the wing was the Speckled Wood, 

 and it did not show itself till April 24th, nor was this 

 surprising for I think last April was the worst April I can 

 remember. On May 4th the Green- veined White put in 

 an appearance, and on the 7th I saw the first Small Tortoise- 

 shell and the first Orange-tip. On the 15th May I was 

 agreeably surprised to see a battered Peacock Butterfly in 

 my flower garden, the first I had seen here in the spring, 

 all the other occurrences having been in the autumn. I 

 hoped it would lay its eggs here and that I should have 

 the pleasure of seeing ics family in the autumn, but evidently 

 the nettles were were not to its taste, as none materialised. 



At Drumbanagher Vicarage, however, my young friends, 

 Misses Phyllis and Doris Nelson found a large family of 

 larvae and succeeded in rearing many fine specimens of this 

 handsome butterfly. 



In mid- June I went to Portnoo, Co. Donegal, and was 

 there for almost a month, but the weather was no more 

 propitious there than here, and I met with but few 

 Lepidoptera. 



The following butterflies were observed : — Large White, 

 Peacock, Wall, Meadow Brown, Small Heath, Green Hair- 

 streak, Small Copper, Common Blue, and Little Blue. A 

 few moths also turned up. As Mrs. Johnson and I were 

 walking across some boggy ground, she picked up a 



