1616 Insects, 



insects, call their attention to the subjoined facts, which might be ex- 

 tensively multiplied : — some of which, in result as to other insects, 

 must have fallen beneath the notice of every practical collector, even 

 of fewer years' experience. 



For eighteen years I possessed four bleached specimens only, of 

 Thecla W-album, having vainly endeavoured to procure others ; when, 

 in 1827, as elsewhere recorded,* I saw the insect at Ripley, not by 

 dozens only, but literally by scores of thousands ! ! ! and, although 

 I frequented the same locality for thirteen years subsequently, some- 

 times in the season, for a month together, I have not since seen a single 

 specimen there ; but in 1833, I caught one specimen at Madingley 

 Wood, near Cambridge. 



Again, it was nine years ere I obtained that beautiful coleopterous in- 

 sect, Endomychus coccineus ; but behold ! in September, 1816, it oc- 

 curred on an alder-stump, in Coombe Wood, in such profusion, that I 

 scraped the insects up by double -handsful ; and since that period, now 

 thirty years, although esteemed an insect of no great rarity, I have not 

 taken, or seen living, half a dozen specimens. 



The first visit I paid to Coombe Wood, viz., on the 24th of May, 

 1810, 1 met with several specimens of Pieris Crat8egi,f an insect I have 

 never seen there since : and from 18.10 to about 1816—7, Limenitis 

 Camilla was not uncommon there, in July ; it has now totally disap- 

 peared ; as has likewise, Vanessa C -album, from Hertford, (where I 

 used to find it in abundance), for nearly 30 years. 



The influence of a new, or neglected locality must also be borne in 

 mind ; e. g. on the 14th of August, 1818, I captured in less than one 

 quarter of an hour, and within a space of 50 yards, Pontia Daplidice ! ! 

 Argynnis Lathonia, male and female ! ! Aspilates gilvaria, (of which 

 Haworth says " Exemplaria tria solum vidi ") and Harpalyce galiata, 

 (then a desideratum with Haworth, after thirty years' experience), a 

 score or two of each ! Gomphus flavipes, male, to this day unique ; as 

 well as other rarities ! ! the two first insects then presumed not to be 

 indigenous. 



The addition of the more notorious circumstances in regard to 

 Colias Hyale, recently, and Vanessa Antiopa formerly, maybe alluded 

 to ; and I may also state that within these few months, my friend Mr. 

 H. Doubleday, saw the rare Erastria venustula, (my pair of which 



* Illustrations (Haustellata), vol. i, p. 77. 



f For nearly thirty successive years, the late Mr. Haworth told me, he found 

 this insect at Little Chelsea; about 1HI8 it disappeared from that neighbourhood. 



