S-1141001_COMPLETO.pdf

128 LARGE COPPER.
the mercantile, the physical, and the intellectual wealth of the
country. The entomologist is the only person who has cause
to lament the change, and he, loyal and patriotic subject as
he is, must not repine at even the disappearance of the Large
Copper Butterfly, in the face of such vast and magnificent
advantages. Still he may be pardoned for casting "one longing
lingering look behind," and I cannot but with some regret
recall, at all events, the time when almost any number of this
dazzling fly was easily procurable, either "by purchase" or "by
exchange," for our cabinets. A goodly "rank and file," from
some individuals of which the figures in the plate are taken,
I noAV consider myself fortunate in possessing, for the existing
number of indigenous specimens is no more again to be added
to by fresh recruits: "Fuit Ilium et ingens gloria"—
"The light of other days has faded, and all its glories past."
Nay, further, not only is it, or rather was it, for it is now, as I
have said, extinct, extremely local, but it has always hitherto been
believed, like the grouse, to be peculiar to Britian, being not
found elsewhere. These are inexplicable facts in Natural History,
but into the consideration of which the limits of my space pre­
vent me from entering. Mr. H. N. Humphreys however states
that he took a specimen, which appeared to be identical with
it, in the Pontine marshes between Rome and Naples.
The "Fen Districts" of Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire,
and other congenial places in Norfolk and Suffolk, such as Holme
Fen, Whittlesea Mere—now no longer a Mere, Bardolph Fen, and
Benacre, were the localities of this fine fly. It was quick and
active on the wing, flying among and about the reeds.
It appears, that is to say, used to appear at the end of July
and the begining of August.
The food of the caterpillar was the water-dock.
This species measures in the expanse of its wings from a
little under to a little over an inch and a half. The fore
wings are of splendid copper-colour, with a black edging to
the outside of the wing, widest at the upper corner, from
whence it decreases; there is a black oblong spot in the centre