ENTOMOLOGICAL REMINISCENCES. 129 
forting, they could not tell me where I could find a bed. How- 
ever, I was fortunate enough to find one at the Ferry House, 
about two miles over the marshes, and felt very thankful after my 
long journey. The next morning I enquired of the children if 
they knew what a swallow-tail butterfly was, and I heard with joy 
that they not only knew it, but that there were lots about there. 
“ All right,” I thought, ‘this is the place for me.” “There goes 
one on the other side of the river,” cried one, and I was soon 
across the river. ‘‘ Where isit?” I cried. ‘ There,” said they, 
and it was with feelings of great disappointment that I beheld 
only a “tortoisehell.” No P. machaon did I see that day, but at 
dusk I took several things, among which were two Nonagrias. 
Not bad things, and if I had known what they were I should have 
taken more. When the man of the house came home he told me 
that he could tell me where the butterfly men stopped, and he 
would direct me in the morning. After breakfast he told me that 
I was to go to a place called Home, then across the seven fields 
to Yexley. Off I went in good spirits, and got there by noon, 
and found the house, and enquired if any fly-catchers stopped 
there. Oh, yes! Mr. Chant and Mr. Bentley had stayed there! 
* All right,” thinks I to myself, and after dinner I went out and 
was overjoyed to see P. machaon flying gaily over the reeds, but 
I could not catch them, as they were out of my reach. However, 
the next day I had them in a turnip-field, and it was a splendid 
sight to see them flitting over the turnip-blossom. I stayed there 
a fortnight, and then walked home, nearly eighty miles, well 
content with my captures. 
Perhaps it may interest some to know how the locality for 
Polyommatus hippothoe was discovered, and how that butterfly 
came to be exterminated. About forty years ago Mr. Benjamin 
Standish (the grandfather) heard that dispar, as then called, had 
been seen in the Fens. Dispar was known and figured in 1792 and 
1795. He got a painting of the butterfly, coloured by his father, 
and went down to the Fens and showed it to people there, but no 
one knew anything about it. Mr. Drake, at the ‘ Checkers,’ told 
him that a man lodged there who worked in the Fens, cutting 
reeds, who was a most likely person to know. When the man 
returned from work Standish showed him the drawing, and said, 
“Do you know anything about a butterfly like this?” ‘ Yes,” 
said the man; “I saw some to-day.” “‘ Well,” said Standish, 
P 
