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attract, the notice of entomologists all over the world. Among the 

 English, and still more among the foreign students, who annually 

 throng our University, there are always a considerable number who 

 arrive in Edinburgh anxious to see '* the rare butterfly from Arthur's 

 Seat," or who are commissioned by entomological friends to obtain it. 

 Besides, there are the still more destructive emissaries from the 

 London and provincial dealers in insects, who infest the hill during 

 the season in which it is found. But although the situation in which 

 this insect is principally taken is extremely circumscribed, T am not 

 aware that its numbers are materially diminished by this continuous 

 drain upon them. The new road now in contemplation beneath 

 " Samson's Ribs," and through the village of Duddingston, will, I 

 fear, go far to exterminate it, as it will pass, I believe, through the 

 exact spot upon which it is found, and to which it is in a singular 

 degree limited. 



The first published account we have of this insect is by Fabricius, 

 in his " Systema Entomologice,'^ 1793, under the name '' LyccBna 

 Artaxerxes^ in which he states its habitat to be '* Anglia," but 

 without any special reference to Scotland. He does this on the 

 authority of Mr Jones of Chelsea, in whose cabinet a specimen then 

 existed ; but it would appear that Fabricius himself never saw the 

 insect, as it was at that time a frequent custom to insert in entomo- 

 logical cabinets a painted piece of card, to supply the place of an 

 insect then believed to be too rare to afford much probability of its 

 being obtained. I may here mention, that naturally feeling some 

 interest to know who this Mr Jones of Chelsea (so often quoted by 

 authors) was, I applied to Mr James Wilson of Woodville, who most 

 obligingly wrote to Mr Adam White, of the British Museum, and 

 through whom we find that Mr Jones had an excellent collection of 

 native insects, and also a number of illustrations, coloured by him- 

 self, which are still in existence ; but from the higher degree of 

 excellence now attained in such delineations, of course greatly dimi- 

 nished in pecuniary value, however interesting they may have been 

 at the time alluded to. It was no doubt one of these illustrations 

 which Fabricius availed himself of in his Systema Entomologice. 

 We find this insect next mentioned as Papilio Artaxerxes by Lewen 

 (1795), a fellow of the Linnean Society, who, hke Fabricius, refers 

 to Mr Jones' specimen, but adds, that it was taken in Scotland. In 

 the Natural History of Insects^ by Donovan, in 1813, we have 



