102 THE YOUNG NATUBALIST. 



Shoreham. This looks as if the species bred in some districts, although the 

 event may be very occasional. 



MeliTjEa Artemis. — This and other kindred species have suffered consider- 

 ably from the hands of collectors, and the cultivation of many pastures or 

 heaths that used to afford them a quiet retreat. The weather of our winters, 

 during the last fifteen or twenty years has, on the whole, been very unfavour- 

 able for the hybernating larvse, which have frequently been killed off in 

 numbers by the dampness, far worse to them than dry cold. 



Vanessa C-album.— Mr. Eobson has remarked that this butterfly has van- 

 ished from some of its northern habitats, but it is still tolerably common in the 

 midland counties. I should like to know what caused its disappearance from 

 the hop districts of Kent, which yielded it abundantly in the good old times 

 of George III., according to the statement of our earlier entomologists. 

 Perhaps a succession of windy and wet winters gradually exterminated the 

 hybernating females, less careful than others about shelter. 



Y. Polychloros. — Certainly less frequent than it was twenty or thirty 

 years ago, but never a generally common species, though many specimens 

 might be occasionally taken near an elm or willow on which the caterpillars 

 had fed, as they are gregarious. It is a curious fact that a dwarfed type of 

 this species has been observed here and there, not readily distinguishable from 

 the allied V. urtka and some have suggested it to be a case of hybridism, but 

 this is doubtful. 



V. Io. — I have not visited the Surrey localities recently, where I regularly 

 saw this butterfly. In North Kent, where it was, many seasons, nearly as 

 abundant as V. urticm, I have not observed a specimen for some years, 

 and I noticed a perceptible diminution year by year previously, yet 

 its life-history resembles that of V. urticce. May not this be the result of a 

 great increase of some parasitic foe ? 



V. Antiopa.— If Levin's account is to be depended upon, it is proof 

 positive, that towards the end of last century, the butterfly bred in England, 

 as at Faversham and Camberwell. 



Y. Cardtji. — Capricious in its appearance, but the septennial theory will 

 not always hold good, for I have seen it two or three years in succession, both 

 in Surrey and Kent. It would be more numerous, perhaps, were it not for its 

 remarkable boldness in approaching mankind, though its power of flight is quite 

 equal to that of the stronger-winged species of its tribe. At all events speci- 

 mens are still obtainable from time to time, especially where thistles are 

 abundant, and there are fields of clover or lucerne. 



