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manner as to entertain the eye with a delightful and amazing variety. The 

 female differs little from the male; being of a sooty black, but without the 

 least tint of purple. Mr. Nixon took a female, which laid five eggs on the 21st 

 July, three of which produced caterpillars the 6th of August. This gentle- 

 man endeavoured to raise them, and tried them with several sorts of growths, 

 but the sallow being omitted, they all perished. From this we may be cer- 

 tain, that they are in the caterpillar state during the winter. It is a very 

 difficult matter to catch them in their flight, for they generally hover like a 

 kite about very high oak and ash trees ; and though when they remove from 

 one high tree to another, they skim lower than at other times, they do it 

 with such rapidity, that the eye can scarce follow them. They delight to 

 settle on the oak and ash, creeping from one leaf to another to sip the dew, at 

 which time they may be easily caught. For this purpose you must be pro- 

 vided with a pole fifteen feet long, with a net at its upper end, the mouth of 

 which, when you have covered the fly, is drawn together by a string, as a 

 purse is. These flies are found in the greatest plenty at Coomb Wood, near 

 Kingston-upon-Thames." 



In the first volume of his " Natural History of British Insects," published 

 in 1792, Donovan writes, "The Papilio iris is esteemed among the beautiful, 

 and placed with the rare, of the English Lepidoptera. It derives the title of 

 Purple High-flyer, as it very rarely descends to the ground ; except in some 

 few instances, and even those instances have been after a strong wind or 

 heavy rain. The tops of the loftiest forest trees afford it an asylum, and in 

 the caterpillar and chrysalis state, it is preserved from the wanton cruelty of 

 man, by the almost iuaccessable height of its habitation. They feed on the 

 sallow (Salix caprea), and the caterpillars are obtained by beating the branches 

 of the tree with a pole twenty or thirty feet in length ; it is then, but a neces- 

 sary precaution to cover the ground beneath with large sheets to a certain 

 distance, or the insects which fall, will be lost amongst the herbage. The 

 great difficulty and trouble to rear the caterpillars when found, and greater 

 difficulty to take the fly, has stamped a valuable consideration on it, and 

 particularly so when fine, and a high price is but esteemed an adequate com- 

 pensation for it, if in good preservation/' 



Ha worth, in his " Lepidoptera Britannica," 1803, gives a very interesting 

 account. " This Purple Emperor of the British oaks is not undeservedly the 

 greatest favourite of our English Aurelians. In his manner likewise, as well 

 as in the varying lustre of his purple plumes, he possesses the strongest 

 claims to their particular attention. In the month of July he makes his 

 appearance in the winged state, and invariably fixes his throne upon the sum- 

 mit of a lofty oak, from the utmost sprigs of which, on sunny days, he per- 



