A HISTORY OF ESSEX The White Admiral (Limenitis sibylla) is found in most of the larger woods in north Essex, and in the closing year of the past century was very abundant in some of them. It seems however to be scarce in the other districts. Mr. Fitch reports a single specimen from Hazeleigh in 1899, Mr. Jeffrey gives Saffron Walden as a locality, and formerly it occurred in Epping Forest. As the larvas feed on the honeysuckle that grows among the tallest underwood, it follows that large numbers of them must perish every winter when the annual clearances are made, and where these are unusually extensive and continued for three or four years the species may be reduced to the verge of extinction ; and this is probably the main cause of the fluctuation in its numbers in restricted localities. The Purple Emperor (Apatura iris) doubtless suffers from the same cause. The larvae hibernate upon the sallow, and in some of its most favoured haunts there are only a few scattered bushes, and when these are cut the larva? necessarily perish. In many woods sallows abound, and there the struggle for existence is carried on under more favourable conditions ; but in these days the species must always be much scarcer than it was formerly when thousands of acres of grand old trees stood where only a few miserable sticks stand to-day. For the green woods of England have disappeared in all directions, and their beautiful wild flowers, birds and insects have to a very considerable extent gone with them. But even under the most favourable circumstances this butterfly was always more or less sporadic. In 1855-6 it was common in the Colchester district, and again for two or three years in the early eighties was comparatively common ; but since then it has become exceedingly rare, not only in Essex but also in Kent, where it occurred freely about the same time. There its disappearance has been attributed to the rapacity of collectors, but here it cannot have been due to this cause, for certainly not more than five per cent, of the specimens seen were captured, as far as can be ascertained. It seems to have occurred in all the larger Essex woods in past years, and doubtless still exists in some of them, and may again recover its lost ground for a time in the near future. The Marbled White (Melanargia galated] was formerly abundant near the wood on Mersea Island, but disappeared with the wood many years ago. Hartley Wood, St. Osyth, also produced it in great plenty ; but only a small remnant of that wood is still standing, and to the few entomologists of this generation who have visited it galatea is only a tradition not a memory. It still occurs pretty freely in south Essex, where it is found at Laindon, on Canvey Island, on the slopes near Had- leigh Castle and elsewhere, but has disappeared from several other districts. In 1858-9 specimens were found on the railway embank- ment at Lexden, and much more recently a single example was captured on the railway near Wivenhoe ; but whether these were stragglers from the south or from an undiscovered colony which may possibly still exist in the north is a moot point. 140
