THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



Vol. L.] may, 1917. [No. 648 



CHRYSOPHANUS DISPAR, AND OTHER BUTTERFLIES 

 AT ST. QUENTIN. 



By H. Rowland-Brown, M.A., F.E.S. 



The Allies' advance is from henceforward on ground familiar 

 to many lepidopterists. It remains to be seen how far the 

 awful havoc wrought by the retreating enemy, and by our 

 own and the French guns driving him Rhinewards, will have 

 affected the happy hunting-grounds of Aisne, Marne, and Nord. 

 St. Quentin, entomologically speaking, has a special interest 

 for the British collector. It was supposed to be a last strong- 

 hold of a form of Chrysophanus dispar, over the identity of which 

 much ink has been slung on both sides of the Channel 

 — last known, I say, because when the indefatigable M. 

 Charles Oberthiir organised a search party to locate the Large 

 Copper in the St. Quentin marsbes — well, the Large Copper 

 had disappeared, mo7'e anglico. There is a lively account of this 

 expedition in fasc. iv of ' Lepidopterologie Comparee,' with the 

 usual fine figures of French (Bordeaux) and British dispxtr for 

 comparison. The expedition failed apparently to run dispar to 

 earth hereabouts, except as represented by forty specimens in 

 a dealer's glass case. I need not enter further into the subject 

 of differentiation by colour of the under side. Suffice it to say 

 that the size of the largest French examples was equal to that 

 of the largest British, and since Mr. Bethune-Baker has proved 

 beyond doul)t that var. rutihis co-existed with typical dispar in 

 the fens of Cambridgeshire and Huntingdon, the determination 

 by size (for tale-room purposes) of *' genuine British dispar "^ 

 is less conclusive than ever. I believe the pins are now accepted 

 as convincing evidence, but I am sure Boisduval, for example, 

 would not have tolerated Doubleday's short pins for a moment. 



My copy of the ' Catalogue des Lepidopteres de I'Arrondisse- 

 ment de Saint-Quentin,' par M. Dubus, Capitaine au 87^ de 

 Ligne, published first in the * Proceedings ' of the Societe Acade- 

 mique of that famous city, has lost its title-page. I believe the 

 first part made its appearance in the 1879 volume. However 

 that may be, we find (p. 182), under 80. Hippothoe, L., var. 

 dispar, Dup., the following interesting note : 



ENTOM. — MAY, 1917- I 



