TRIFID^, 123 



at light by a professional collector, at Horning Fen about 

 six miles from the original spot, and on the other side of the 

 river Bure. In 1873 the insect had become comparatively- 

 common in the original locality, and very many specimens 

 were taken, even twenty in an evening, in their first flight at 

 dusk. From that time till the present it has been regularly 

 obtainable in the same and neighbouring fens, and in some 

 seasons in respectable numbers. In 1893, Dr. Wheeler wrote 

 to me that it had very considerably extended its range, being 

 found at Barton Broad, and in other portions of the Norfolk 

 Fens from which previously it had been quite absent. So 

 far as I can ascertain, no specimen of this species has been 

 observed in any other part of the United Kingdom. In 

 1874, Dr. Staudinger, after examining specimens submitted 

 to him by Mr. H. Doubleday, reported : " I never saw it before ; 

 it is a very good species, and very distinct from all others 

 known." A single specimen had, however, been taken (in 

 1870 ?) in Belgium, and shown by the captor. Dr. Breyer, to 

 Mr. Staintou. This is the only record of its occurrence, so 

 far as I know, out of England. 



I have given the history of this species with some minute- 

 ness, because it seems to furnish all the evidence which it 

 would be possible to obtain in order to suggest the actual 

 genesis, or introduction of a total novelty, to the world's 

 fauna. This particular spot of a few acres' extent, in 

 Ean worth Fen — with which I am personally quite familiar — 

 was the place in which, in the year 1857, William Winter, 

 schoolmaster at Eanworth, collected the large number of fen 

 insects — then rare and wanted by almost every collector — 

 which he offered for exchange— and sale— in the Entomo- 

 logists' Intelligencer for that year, and for which I, among a 

 multitude of others, wrote to him. He stated that a wheel- 

 barrowful of boxes was brought to his door by the postman. 

 He was a skilful collector, and took specimens of every 

 species of Macro-lepidoptera since known to be obtainable 

 in that fen, except the individual species of which I am now 



