11 NOVEMBER 1949, Page 18

Late Butterflies Accounts continue to reach me of the scarcity

of butterflies (which is my experience) in some places and the multitude in others. The only common experience is that Clouded Yellows made a late but general and generous appearance. One account gives a wonderful picture of the decoration of the fine rock garden at St. Leonards by "countless Clouded Yellows" and a sprinkling of Painted Ladies and Humming-bird Hawk- moths. London (where parasites prevent butterflies from breeding) has attracted a good many. One observer saw Clouded Yellows in Regent's Park, a Red Admiral in the new gardens at St. Paul's and a Humming-bird Hawk-moth in some yellow dahlias in the garden of an old cemetery near Paddington. Such things belonged to October. The only butterflies left are the Tortoise-shell and such which seek hibernation in our warm rooms. Some interesting evidence of the movements—as opposed to the migration—of butterflies is about to be published by a Scottish naturalist who has been marking a number of butterflies with blue cellulose and proves that they travel considerable distances.