S-1141001_COMPLETO.pdf

PLATE LIV.
127
LARGE COPPER.
Lycana dispar, CURTIS. DUNCAN. WOOD. SWAINSON.
Papilio dispar, HAWORTH. KIRBY AND SPENCE.
" hippotho'e, LEWIN. DONOVAN^
" " var. ESPEE.
Polyommatus dispar, BOISDUVAL.
Chrysophanus dispar, WESTWOOD.
LONG the tenant of the watery wastes which formed the
fen districts of Cambridgeshire and the adjoining counties, this
fine insect has at last disappeared from what Avas for ages its
secure fastness and its safe stronghold. The industry of man
has stopped the "Meeting of the Avaters," or rather the very
waters themselves have been employed against themselves, and,
condensed in the steam-engine, have driven all before them,
as if with the force of the rising tide of the ocean. Science,
with one of her many triumphs, has here truly achieved a
mighty and a valuable victory; and the land that was once
productive only of fever and of ague, now scarce yields to
any in broad England in the weight of its golden harvest.
Time was, and even abundantly within our own recollection,
when it might have been considered a beneficial improvement
to introduce a stream of water where none before existed, or
to deepen it where it did into a navigable canal, and the
engineer who successfully completed the work might well say
with a laudable satisfaction—
"Impellitque rates ubi duxit aratra colonus;"
but now the converse is the just subject of boast, and even
over the loose surface of the most treacherous morass, the
iron Avay conveys with speed and safety, and to any extent,