1 1 8 Lincolnshire Notes & Queries* 



becoming extinct for reasons over which there is no control 

 notably the drainage of the Fen district. The great 

 instance, perhaps, is the Large Copper Butterfly, which has 

 not been seen for about fifty years, although there are several 

 now living who can remember the insect as quite common in 

 Yaxley and neighbouring Fens. A friend of mine, now far 

 advanced in years, once bought a boxful for a half-penny apiece, 

 and now ^7 is not an uncommon price for a good specimen. 

 Noctua subrosea is another less known fen insect which has been 

 extinguished by drainage, and Orgyia c&nosa (the Reed 

 Tussort) has comparatively recently disappeared ; Cleora 

 riduaria (the Speckled Beauty) has, I believe, not occurred for 

 many years in the New Forest ; Lyceena ads (the Mazarine 

 Blue) is already gone j and the two conspicuous butterflies, 

 Aporia crattegi (the Black-veined White) and Lyctenaarion (the 

 Large Blue) appear to be in imminent danger of complete 

 extinction ; in one or two of these cases the destruction of the 

 food plant by the burning of pasture or grazing of sheep may 

 be the cause of the disappearance, but in others the numbers 

 have certainly been much diminished by collectors, and a 

 Committee has recently been appointed by the Council of the 

 Entomological Society to enquire into the matter generally, 

 and, if possible, to devise a plan by which some of the rapidly 

 disappearing species may be yet preserved. 



This, perhaps, may seem to have but little bearing upon the 

 natural history of the county, but I have not much doubt that 

 some of those now extinct insects were once common in the 

 Lincolnshire fens ; in fact, through Mr. Barber, whom I have 

 before mentioned, I thought I had secured some evidence of 

 the occurrence of the Large Copper in the county within the last 

 twenty-five or thirty years, but on examining into it, it did not 

 appear sufficiently trustworthy to found a record on. The 

 Swallow-tail Butterfly (Papilw machaon\ the most conspicuous 

 of all our British insects, ought certainly to occur in 

 Lincolnshire, and I believe that it has been found, but I cannot 

 come across any authentic record. This beautiful species will 

 soon be exterminated from its chief haunt, Wicken Fen, but it 

 will still linger in many inaccessible localities in the Norfolk 

 Broads and smaller Cambridgeshire Fens, such as Chippenham, 

 where the larvae have been found feeding on Angelica syhestrls. 

 With regard to Butterflies undoubtedly occurring in the county, 

 we have already alluded to Hesperia paniscus^ and Thecla betults 

 (the Brown Hair-streak) and Apatura iris (the Purple 



