Butterflies prefer some counties more than others.

'Flat' counties the worst place for butterflies.

If you are Mr average butterfly, you are much more likely to be at home in Cumbria or Herefordshire than in Suffolk shows a new 'extinction league table' produced by Butterfly Conservation, the butterfly charity. A mixture of intensive farming practices, urban sprawl and lack of woodland management have led to a major decline in the UK butterfly population in the last 100 years, with 17 species having disappeared from our shores in that time, and most other species having suffered a huge decline in their range.

The newly created extinction league table shows that Hertfordshire 'leads' the way with 17 species of butterfly having gone missing over the last 100 years. Bedfordshire, Lincolnshire and Suffolk all qualify for Europe in equal second place having lost 15 species each, Cambridgeshire with 12 and Essex with 11 coming next.

Dr Martin Warren, the charities chief, said: 'Butterfly species are becoming extinct county by county. It is deeply worrying. Butterflies in profusion tell us that nature is in balance. Where butterflies are disappearing nature generally is in trouble.' He added: 'These extinctions are the result of habitat loss. That's the result of either urban spread, lack of woodland management or intensive farming practices. Sadly these counties in the East of England lack any serious hills which could have provided a refuge from the plough.'

Warwickshire, having lost 9 species is in seventh place, is the worst placing for a county outside the East of England.

The High Brown Fritillary has fared the worst of any butterfly, being found in only 20% of the locations it was forty years ago and can now be found in just 8 British counties.