6d tMe entomologist* 



EEMAEKS ON CHRYSOPHANUS DISPAR. 

 By C. W. Dale, F.E.S. 



First of all, there is a considerable difference in size, the 

 smallest in my collection measuring one inch and five lines 

 across the wings, and the largest two inches and two lines. It 

 also varies in outline. My father took two male specimens at 

 Trundle Mere, in Hunts, the fore wings of one being long and 

 acute, and of the other short and obtuse ; but they do not differ 

 in any other respect. The male is of an effulgent coppery 

 colour, with a larger and a smaller black spot on the fore wings. 

 In the var. riitiliis the second spot is absent. This variety has 

 been occasionally taken in England, in company with the type. 

 Haworth recorded it under the name of hippothoe. There is 

 considerably more variation in the female. This sex has two 

 larger black spots above the centre of each fore wing, and a row 

 of seven between the centre and the hind margin, which is 

 broader than that of the male. The outer rows of spots are 

 elongated, like those of Lycana arion, but vary somewhat in size, 

 and I have a specimen in which the two middle spots of the row 

 are larger than the rest. The hind wings of this sex are of a 

 brown-black above, much irrorated with copper, the veins being 

 copper-coloured, and running into a broad copper band near the 

 hinder extremity, the edge itself being brown, with six triangular 

 black-brown spots extending into the copper band, and giving it 

 a lobed appearance. 



The hind wings of some specimens are almost black, and, 

 being hardly irrorated with copper at all, the broad copper band 

 stands forth very distinct. I have one grand variety, almost 

 black, with the markings much suffused. 



Mr. Sidebotham had a variety of the opposite extreme, being 

 of a silvery white, like the var. schmidtii of C. phloeas. 



C. di^par was known to be a British species previous to 1790, 

 and at one time was so numerous that Mr. Haworth took no less 

 than fifty in a single day in Bardolph Fen. The latest capture 

 appears to have been in 1847. I well remember one story my 

 father used to tell. In 1819 he had in his employ an old boat- 

 man at Whittlesea Mere, Thomas Speechley by name. One day 

 the other boatmen got round him, and asked him what he was 

 about. " Catching butterflies worth a guinea apiece," was his 

 reply. " They should like that work too," they said. Before my 

 father's death, in 1872, specimens of C. dispar were actually 

 selling for a guinea apiece ; but how astonished he would have 

 been at the idea of their selling at £6. 



There is no doubt that an allied species, C. virgaurece (the 

 scarce copper), used to occur with C. dispar in the fen country. 

 In addition to the published records in the * British Naturalist,' 



