Comma

There has been a reasonable number of Commas this year - it makes regular but not numerous appearances here. A dead one in the house gave me the opportunity to view its underside for once and I was struck by the greenish colour of the spots which I had not noticed before. I was also surprised in looking it up in my Butterfly book (Thomas and Lewington) that the Comma had almost disappeared from Britain by the end of the 19thC. Its last redoubt was in the Marches here, specifically Herefordshire, Monmouthshire and Gloucestershire. The start of a recovery was first noticed in 1914 and continued until the 1950s and since the late 1970s it has kicked on again. There is no accepted explanation of the population fluctuations with climate and farming practices likely to be involved