Original Jlrtides. 



A RAMBLE ON THE COTSWOLDS IN SEARCH OF 



LYCJENA AEION. 



By H. Goss, F. L. S., &c. 



As Lyccem Avion is a species whose geographical range in the United 

 Kingdom is so very limited, and as consequently comparatively few 

 British lepidopterists have had opportunities of seeing it alive in this 

 country, some notes on its occurrence in the Cots wolds may not be 

 without interest. 



In the course of the last seventeen years I have had the satisfaction 

 of seeing and capturing in various localities in the United Kingdom, 

 which I have specially visited for the purpose, a considerable number 

 of our most local lepidoptera; and of the Rhopalocera (excepting 

 Lathonia^ Acis, and Bispar), there are but three local species whose 

 acquaintance I have not had the pleasure of cultivating in their 

 respective haunts. 



Jjymna Arion was one of the species which from my earliest years 

 I always felt a very great desire to see alive, but it was not until 

 June, 1876, that I had the pleasure of meeting with it. 



Some eighteen years ago the only place in this country in which, 

 so far as was then known to the majority of collectors, Arion could 

 with certainty be met with was Barnwell Wold, Northamptonshire, 

 and to that favoured locality I determined, in 1865, to make a 

 pilgrimage. Accordingly, on the 16 th of June of that year I left 

 Brighton for Oundle, which I made my head-quarters, and where I 

 stayed for ten days, visiting either Barnwell or Ashton Wolds nearly 

 every day during my stay. The season of 1865 was a very forward 

 one, and on the 17th June I found Thecla pruni "out" in profusion in 

 the woods bordering Barnwell Wold. Even at this early date the 

 majority of the male specimens were in poor condition, but the 

 females were generally in good order. V. C-album occurred sparingly 

 in Ashton Wold, but of Arion, for which I searched for hours day 

 after day in every corner of Barnwell Wold, I never saw a specimen, 

 I was afterwards informed by the Rev. W. Whall, then vicar of 

 Thurning, who lived about half a mile from the Wold, that no 

 specimen of Arion had been seen there since 1862 or 1863, and that 

 the species had, he believed, been exterminated in that locality. This 

 to my great disappointment I found to be the case, and after ten days 

 I gave up the search, and went off to Cumberland for a month's 

 collecting. 



N. S., Vol. iil, June, 1878. 



