122 THE entomologist's record. 



a single specimen in 1819 ; it has also been caught near the signal- 

 house on Dover Cliffs, and on bramble blossoms, in rocky situations, 

 in North Wales; several specimens were taken in Kent during the 

 past season, I believe in the vicinity of Deal ; it is said to have 

 occurred near Winchester in plenty ; and Lewin tells us that it is 

 found on Marlborough Downs, Wilts, on hills near Bath, and near 

 Clifden in Bucks." 



Passing from 1828 to 1857, Stainton adds :— " Barnwell Wold, 

 Northamptonshire," and quotes the following extract from the 

 Zoohxjist for 1852 (p. 3B50), by the Rev. Wm. Bree, of Polebrook : — 

 "The great prize of all the butterflies of our neighbourhood, however, 

 I hold to be Pdhfonniiatus arion, which, if I mistake not, was first 

 discovered here by myself some thirteen or fourteen years since. It is 

 confined entirely, as far as my experience goes, to Barnwell Wold and 

 the adjoining rough fields, with the exception of a single specimen 



which I once met with in a rough field near Polebrook Many 



entomologists have, of late years, visited Barnwell Wold in search of 

 ariiiu : in short, a summer never passes without meeting in my rambles 

 with brother entomologists from distant parts of the country. I 

 rejoice, however, to be able to state that its annual occurrence does 

 not appear to be diminished in consequence. Unless my memory fails 

 me, I think Mr. Wolley, of Trinity College, Cambridge, informed me 

 that one year he captured in a few days between fifty and sixty speci- 

 mens in and about Barnwell Wold, though, in point of weather, the 

 days were anything but favourable." Stainton adds {Manual, i., 

 p. 60, 1857) : — " Since the above was written the insect has apparently 

 become less abundant," to which, under the circumstances, we would 

 add " as well it might, if the entomologists from different parts of the 

 country served the species as did Mr. Wolley" and Mr. Bond, Avho 

 took forty-nine specimens at Barnwell Wold, remarking at the time 

 that he reported the capture of these specimens, that the insect " is a 

 very local one, for, although I have searched the Wold well, I have 

 only found it in one spot, in the corner of a rough pasture under a 

 wood ; it is an easy insect to take, flying very low, and is very con- 

 spicuous, settling occasionally on wild thyme, etc." [British Ihittcrjliis 

 (Newman), p. 140] . Under the onslaughts of the Wolleys, Bonds, 

 and those who thought that an insect restricted to "a corner of a 

 rough pasture under a wood " could stand their continuous annual 

 attacks without being exterminated, the insect soon became extinct in 

 Barnwell Wold, as it had previously become in Beds, Bucks, Kent, 

 Hunts, Hants and Wiltshire. 



About the same time Mr. Quekett and others did their best to 

 exterminate the species in Somersetshire. Of Mr. Quekett's exploits 

 we read : — " I took about forty specimens on the 15th June, 1888, in 

 a situation abounding with long grass and brambles at Langport, 

 near Taunton ; and on the same day, in 1884, I took about twenty 

 specimens, and Mr. Dale ten." Newman adds : — " Subsequently Mr. 

 Quekett visited the same locality on several occasions, and always 

 with the same success," and then, of course, L. arion became extinct 

 in Somerset. 



Devonshire was the next point of attack. In 1865, Mr. Bignell 

 writes that he captured, on June 17th, thirty-six specimens near 

 Plymouth, some of them much wasted {Knt., ii., p. 295), whilst Mr, 



