61 



having been taken on Dover Cliffs, Marlborough Downs, the hills near Bath, 

 and near Cliefden in Buckinghamshire." 



Mr. Haworth received this local species from Dr. Abbott, who took it in 

 1798, in the Mouse's Pasture, near Bedford, where Mr. Dale afterwards 

 took it in 1819. 



It was also formerly taken on hills near Winchester, at Monk's Wood in 

 Huntingdonshire, near Hereford, and at Charmouth, in Dorsetshire. Its 

 metropolis appears to have been in South Devon, at the Bolt's Head, near 

 Plymouth. It has also been met in some abundance at Clonelly, in North 

 Devon, at Langport, in Somersetshire, and on the Cotswold Hills in Glou- 

 cestershire. From Gloucestershire we ascend to a Midland county, North- 

 amptonshire, in which county a considerable number have been taken at 

 Barnwell Wold, where it was discovered by the Eev. W. T. Bree, in July, 

 1837. 



During the last five and twenty years, this fine species of Blue has been 

 gradually disappearing from its known localities in this country. It was 

 certainly extinct at Barnwell Wold, in 1865, and it has rarely, if ever, been 

 seen in the Wold since the wet summer of 1860. 



The following passage is extracted from a communication made to the 

 "Entomologists' Monthly Magazine" for 1885, by Mr. Herbert Marsden : 

 "It was on June 17th, 1866, that I first saw the species alive, when in the 

 course of a long ramble I captured it in a narrow valley amongst the Cots- 

 wold Hills. The early part of June, 1867, was dark and cold, and I only 

 secured some twelve or fifteen examples. The season, May and June, 1868, 

 was hot and brilliant, and Arion appeared on June 5th, which is the earliest 

 date I ever heard of the species being out; but although rather more plenti- 

 ful than the previous year, it was still rather scarce. In 1869, another fine 

 or partially fine season, it was more abundant, and I find from my diary that 

 on June 19th I took ten at rest about sunset. The year 1870, however, is 

 the one to be marked with a white stone by the lovers of Lycsenidse; and 

 Arion appeared much more widely distributed than in any other year I know 

 of, either before or since. It would, I am sure, have been possible for an 

 active collector to have caught a thousand specimens during the season, for 

 in a few visits I secured about an hundred and fifty, not netting half of those 

 seen, and turning many loose again. During the next few years Arion con- 

 tinued to appear, but very irregularly as regards numbers. The best seasons 

 since 1870 being those of 1876 and 1877, the latter especially, but on no 

 occasion has it been nearly so abundant as in 1870. Now come the dark days. 

 The latter part of June, 1877, was damp and broken, not at all the bright 

 warm weather which Arion loves. In dark, cloudy weather they are always 



