NOTES—ORIGINAL AND SELECTED. 
I 4 I 
many various ducks ; on 5th February, Mallard, Wigeon, 
Pochards, Scaup, Goosanders, Mergansers ; 6th February, 
Mergansers, Wigeon ; 7th February, Wigeon, Goldeneye, 
Pochards and Mergansers ; and so on every day up to to-day 
(February 16th), when my c bag ’ was five Mallard, nine Mer¬ 
gansers, eight Goldeneye, besides some 3,000 Coots, hundreds of 
Dunlin, Redshanks, Curlew and Gulls innumerable.” On 22nd 
of October 1912, Mr. Nichols wrote :—“ Five Glossy Ibises 
(Plegadis falcinellus) were shot at Walton-on-the-Naze on 14th 
October, by Mr. W. Woodruffe Eagle and his brothers. One 
of his men reported that six 1 black curlews ’ were on a pond 
in the marshes. Mr. Eagle and his brothers went out and 
found the birds at the pond, and killed five, two adults and three 
young. The sixth bird was afterwards found dead by somebody 
else.” 
INSECTS. 
Duke of Burgundy Fritillary (Melitcea athalia ).—For many 
years this butterfly has not been known in Essex, and entomolo¬ 
gists will now be pleased to hear of its existence in some large 
woods in this county. In May 1911, Mr. Charles Cork and I made 
this interesting discovery, and, from the few specimens obtained, 
judged it to be very scarce, but on revisiting the spot this year 
we were agreeably suprised and delighted to find it in greatly 
increased numbers. Having communicated this fact to Mr. 
Frohawk, he expressed the opinion that the species, being very 
local in its distribution, and, so far as known in this country, 
never migrating from one place to another, it must always have 
been present in the locality referred to, but, owing to its former 
scarceness, had been overlooked. Having collected in this 
particular part for nearly twelve years, it is certainly strange 
that, at some time or other during that period, especially the 
hot summers of 1905-6, it did not come under our notice, and I 
can only assume that some other natural influence, resultant, 
perhaps, from the exceptional climatic conditions of the last two 
years, caused it to become plentiful. — j. Forsyth Johnstone, 
(Hutton, Essex) in Field, 8th June 1912.) 
