BRITISH BUTTERFLIES AND MOTHS 99 



any, private ones in the country to surpass them. 

 Naturally, having many visitors to see his cabinets 

 of insects, he delighted in showing them to his 

 friends, and of almost every kind that was noticed 

 he would have something to say of interest. Of all 

 his butterflies there were none that he prized more 

 than his specimens of the " Large Copper " (Lyc&na 

 dispar], now no more to be found in this, or perhaps 

 any other, country. In noticing it in his treatise he 

 remarked : 



" Long the tenant of the watery wastes which 

 formed the fen districts of Cambridgeshire and the 

 adjoining counties, this fine insect has at last dis- 

 appeared from what was for ages its secure fastness 

 and its safe stronghold. . . . Time was, and even 

 abundantly within our own recollection, when it 

 might have been considered a beneficial improve- 

 ment to induce a stream of water where none before 

 existed, or to deepen it where it did into a navigable 

 canal, and the engineer who successfully completed 

 the work might say, with a laudable satisfaction 



' Impellitque rates ubi duxit aratra colonus ; ' 



but now the converse is a just subject for boast, and 

 even over the loose surface of the most treacherous 

 morass, the iron way conveys with speed and safety, 

 and to any extent, the mercantile, the physical, and 

 the intellectual wealth of the country. The entomo- 

 logist is the only person who has cause to lament 

 the change, and he, loyal and patriotic subject as 

 he is, must not repine at even the disappearance 



