86 PURPLE EMPEROR. 



do not make my sentence too long, that he ever made — namely, 

 whatever you want to do that is within the hounds of possibility, 

 determine that it shall be done, and you will be sure to succeed ! 

 That specimen, a male, as a practical illustration of the lesson, 

 now graces my cabinet, together with the first female that its 

 captor had ever taken, both obligingly presented by him to 

 me. Since then, I have just heard from him that he took 

 another the day after I left him, in one of the ridings of the 

 wood, in his hat, I hope that Her Most Gracious Majesty 

 has no more profoundly loyal subject than myself, and I 

 may therefore relate that, without any reference to what is 

 now going on in France, or any allusion to Louis Napoleon, 

 my toast that evening after dinner Avas, with as much sincerity 

 as is in the minds of the French, 'T-ire L^ Empercttr!^ 



The following are given as localities for this noble fly: — 

 The neighbourhood of Doncaster, Yorkshire; but I must 

 frankly confess that I never saw it there; Warwickshire; the 

 Isle of Wight; Coombe Wood and Darenth Wood, near London; 

 Bradfield, near Reading, and Enborne Copse, near Newbury, 

 Berkshire; Lilford, Barnwell, and Ashton Wold, and the neigh- 

 bourhood of Polebrook, Northamptonshire; woods in the neigh- 

 bourhood of Arundel, and Poynings, near Brighton, Sussex; 

 near St. Neots, Huntingdonshire. In the woods near Stoke-by- 

 Nayland, Suffolk, B. B. Postans, Esq. tells me that it is 

 found abundantly, as it also is in those of Badly, Dodnash, 

 and Ray don; and he has favoured me with a fine specimen. 

 He captured six in 1851, one of them reared from the cater- 

 pillar; and he was informed by Mr. Seaman, an old collector 

 at Ipswich, that in Hartley Wood, near St. Osyth, and between 

 Dedham and Colchester, in Essex, he in one season took a 

 hundred specimens in a fortnight. It is also taken in that 

 county in Epping Forest, Great and Little Stour Woods, 

 Wrabness, and Bamsay; Clapham Park Wood, Bedfordshire; 

 and Brinsop Copse, Herefordshire. 



This splendid insect is to be seen, if seen at all, the first or 

 second week in July, perched on the outermost spray of some 

 commandinsT oak or other tree — an elm or an ash — the his^hest 



