On the probable early Extinction of a Cotteswold Butterfly. By 
Auten Harker, F.L.S., Professor of Natural History in the 
Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester. Read 16th February, 
1886. (WirH «a Purate.) 
It has occasionally been the useful practice of the Club to 
record in its Proceedings a short account of any rare animal or 
plant native to our hills, whose increasing rarity has given rise 
to fears for its ultimate disappearance. 
Such fears are now largely entertained by competent 
Entomologists with regard to a small Butterfly which has long 
been one of the gems of our local fauna, the “ Large Blue” 
(Lycena Arion, L.) The genus Lycena includes all those 
Butterflies which are familiarly known as “Blues,” though 
their colour is often brown or reddish brown. There are in 
Europe some 48 or 50 species of the genus, but of these only 
eight are regular inhabitants of our islands, while two or three 
species are occasional visitors. Of the indigenous species the 
largest and most handsome, though not the most brilliantly 
coloured, is the subject of this paper—Lycena Arion. 
The female measures as much as 1°75 inches in expanse of 
wing; the colour is a deep dull blue, inclining to purple in the 
female, with a wide outer dark margin, and white fringes. 
Spots, lunules and dashes of black are distributed in the blue, 
these being larger in the female. The outer margins are shot 
with a rich golden brown, difficult to render faithfully, even in 
a carefully hand coloured sketch. In the higher valleys of the 
Alps the insect is much darker, a variety, obscura, being nearly 
black. 
Within the recollection of some of us this Butterfly was 
very common over a large area of the Cotteswold hills. Those 
who have been in the habit of visiting its haunts from year to 
year have remarked its increasing rarity, until at length periods 
