THE 



LEPIDOPTEEA OF CAMBRIDGESHIEE. 

 By WM FARREX. 



RHOPALOCERA. 



ALTHOUGH Cambridgeshire cannot be considered a good 

 butterfly county, yet with records made in the earlier part 

 of last century, most of which are quite reliable, a list might 

 be formed comprising some sixty species, which is within 

 half-a-dozen of the complete British list ; at the present time 

 however it would not be easy to find more than thirty-five 

 species. 



Most important of these, the Swallow-tailed butterfly, 

 Papilio mackaon, L., still exists in considerable numbers in 

 Wicken Fen, but it is no longer found in the surrounding 

 fens and north of Ely, where it was plentiful fifty or sixty 

 years ago. Aporia crataegi, L., probably, and Leucophasia 

 sinapsis, L. certainly occurred in the woods near Gamlingay 

 in the time of Jenyns, the latter not uncommonly; it was 

 taken there by Prof. Babington as late as 1835. Pieris 

 daplidice, L., has been frequently taken, but not recently, 

 on the chalk between Cambridge and Newmarket. In years 

 notable for a visitation of " Clouded yellows," the two species 

 of Colias, C. edusa, Fb., and C. hyale, L., have been taken in 

 most parts of the county, but nowhere in such abundance as 

 on the chalk in the south-east. There are records for all the 

 " Fritillaries," of which the two small species of Argynnis, 

 A. selene, Schiff., and A. euphrosyne, L., may still occur at 

 M. & s. 11 



