It5 LLOYDS NAtUkAL HISTORY. 



Polyonimatiis virgaiirece, Godart, Enc. Meth. ix. p. 6C9, no. 

 166(1823); Lang, Butterflies Eur. p. 86, pi. 19, fig. i 

 (1881). 

 Lyccsna virgaurecB, Stephens, III. Brit. Ent. Haust. i. p. 83, 

 pi. 9 (1828); Kirby, Eur. Butterflies and Moths, p. 56, 

 pi. 15, figs. I ^-^(1879). 

 C/irysoJ)ha?iHs virgaurecE, Barrett, Lepid. Brit. Isl. i. p. 55 (1892). 



The present species is common in many parts of Europe 

 and Western Asia, and was stated by Stephens, on the authority 

 of older writers, to be found in marshes in Cambridgeshire and 

 Huntingdonshire, frequenting the flowers of the Golden Rod 

 in August. These localities have long been destroyed, and 

 the insect, if it ever existed there, has probably been exter- 

 minated, with so many others ; but it must have always been a 

 great rarity in this country. One or two British specimens 

 have been recorded in more recent times, but Mr. Barrett 

 thinks that they were probably accidentally introduced with 

 plants, or otherwise, The last recorded specimen was taken 

 at Cromer, not a very unlikely locality. On the Continent it 

 frequents flowery slopes, open places in woods, &c., where its 

 brilliant colour renders it very conspicuous. It may easily be 

 distinguished from all other European species by the white 

 markings on the under side. 



The Scarce Copper measures about an inch and a quarter 

 across the wings, which are in the male of a brilliant copper 

 above, slightly inclining to yellow, with a narrow black 

 border; towards the border of the hind-wings are some small 

 black dots. The female is dull copper, with discoidal lunules, a 

 spot in the cell on the fore-wings, and two rows of large black 

 spots on the fore-wings, and three rows on the hind ones, the 

 innermost incomplete. On the under side the fore- wings are 

 coppery, with two small black spots in the cell within the dis- 

 coidal lunule, and a row of small blnck spots beyond ; the 



