S-1141001_COMPLETO.pdf

86 PURPLE EMPEROR.
do not make my sentence too long, that he ever made—namely,
whatever you Avant to do that is Avithin the bounds of possibility,
determine that it shall be done, and you will be sure to succeed!
That specimen, a male, as a practical illustration of the lesson,
noAV graces my cabinet, together with the first female that its
captor had ever taken, both obligingly presented by him to
me. Since then, I have just heard from him that he took
another the day after I left him, in one of the ridings of the
wood, in his hat. I hope that Her Most Gracious Majesty
has no more profoundly loyal subject than myself, and I
mav therefore relate that, Avithout any reference to what is
noAV going on in France, or any allusion to Louis Napoleon,
my toast that evening after dinner was, with as much sincerity
as in the minds of the French, 'Vive UEmpereur^
The following are given as localities for this noble fly:—
The neighbourhood of Doncaster, Yorkshire; but I must
frankly confess that I never saw it there; Warwickshire; the
Isle of Wight; Coombe Wood and Darenth Wood, near London;
Bradfield, near Reading, and Enborne Copse, near Newbury,
Berkshire; Lilford, Barnwell, and Ash ton Wold, and the neigh­
bourhood of Polebrook, Northamptonshire; Avoods in the neigh­
bourhood of Arundel, and Poynings, near Brighton, Sussex;
near St. Neots, Huntingdonshire. In the woods near Stoke-by-
Nayland, Suffolk, R. B. Postans, Esq. tells me that it is
found abundantly, as it also is in those of Badly, Dodnash,
and Raydon; and he has favoured me Avith a fine specimen.
He captured six in 1851, one of them reared from the cater­
pillar; and he Avas informed by Mr. Seaman, an old collector
at Ipswich, that in Hartley Wood, near St. Osyth, and between
Dedham and Colchester, in Essex, he in one season took a
hundred specimens in a fortnight. It is also taken in that
county in Epping Forest, Great and Little Stour Woods,
Wrabness, and Ramsay; Clapham Park Wood, Bedfordshire;
and Brinsop Copse, Herefordshire.
This splendid insect is to be seen, if seen at all, the first or
second week in July, perched on the outermost spray of some
commanding oak or other tree—an elm or an ash—the hi°-hest