From 1989 to 2001, fleas (Siphonaptera) were collected from medium-sized mammals and birds in Hiroshima Prefecture, Chugoku District, Honshu, Japan. Five species, Ctenocephalides felis felis (Bouche), Chaetopsylla mikado Rothschild, Paraceras melis sinensis (Liu), Monopsyllus argus (Rothschild), and Ceratophyllus gallinae dilatus Dudolkina, totaling 60 individuals, were captured from seven species of host animals: Petaurista leucogenys (Temminck), Nyctereutes procyonoides (Gray), Vulpes vulpes (Linnaeus), Martes melampus (Wagner), Mustela sp., Meles meles (Linnaeus), and Passer montanus (Linnaeus). Three species of above mentioned fleas, P. melis sinensis, M. argus, and C. gallinae dilatus are newly recorded form Chugoku District, Honshu, Japan.

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A literature survey was conducted to analyze the factors affecting the decline of butterflies in Japan. As a result, deforestation and the conversion of natural forests were found to be the main causes of the decline of forest butterfly species, and the recent cessation of traditional mowing of habitat has severely affected grassland butterfly species. The major causes of decline vary from district to district in Japan and from habitat type to habitat type of each butterfly species. In recent years, the effect of "the cessation of traditional rural land uses (e.g. abandonment of coppicing and mowing practices)" on the decline of butterflies has become larger, while the effects of "deforestation", "development of farmland" and "agrochemicals" have become somewhat smaller in many districts. During the past 10 years, butterfly species that prefer natural or semi-natural types of grasslands and thin woodlands (woodlands scattered in a grassland) as their habitat have declined conspicuously. On the other hand, the declining tendency of some forest species, e.g. species that prefer primary forests as their habitat, has been decelerating in recent years because natural forests in mountainous areas are seldom cut. To conserve butterfly diversity, two major steps are needed: (i) conservation of old secondary forests, which can provide refuge to primary forest species, and (ii) felling certain numbers and/or areas of relatively young secondary forests every year to provide temporal habitats for grassland and thin woodland species.

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