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A HISTORY OF NORTHAMPTONSHIRE Weekly Hall Wood and Geddington Chase, in Whittlebury Forest, Salcey Forest, Yardley Chase, Sywell Wood, and elsewhere in the south and north of the county. The five species of the genus Thecla (the Hairstreaks) are more or less common in Northamptonshire. The most local and interesting of these, the Black Hairstreak {T. pruni, L.) is in some years abundant in woods near Rockingham, Kettering and elsewhere ; but except in a few localities in North Buckinghamshire, Huntingdonshire, and other neighbouring counties, it is unknown elsewhere in the United Kingdom. I have found it in some seasons in abundance in two or three woods in the county. It is fond of settling on the flowers of the privet [Ligustrtim vulgare) and the wayfaring tree {Viburnum lantand). Mr. Kaye says it is also partial to the flowers of valerian. The White-letter Hairstreak {Thecla iv.-album, Kn.) — a local species but much more generally distributed than the last — is not uncommon in the county, and is occasionally abundant, as is also the Brown Hairstreak {T. betulce, L.) which is especially common in the larval state in cer- tain woods. The Purple Hairstreak (T. quercus, L.) is common in oak woods, and the Green Hairstreak {T. rubi, L.) is partially distributed in the county and is common in some localities. The Mazarine Blue {Lyccena acts, Fb.) formerly occurred in the county, and Sywell Wood is mentioned as a locality by Messrs. Hull and Tomalin. No specimens have been captured for many years. The Large Blue {Lyccena arion, L.) was formerly plentiful in rough pastures adjoining Barnwell Wold, but disappeared therefrom nearly forty years ago after the exceptionally wet summer of i860, and the species is now confined to a few localities in the Cotswolds, Gloucester- shire, and to some parts of Devon and Cornwall. The Duke of Burgundy {Nemeobius lucina, L.) occurs near Tow- cester and in Barnwell Wold, and I have found it commonly in many woods in the county. The Chequered Skipper {Hesperia paniscus. Fab.) — one of the most local species of the Hesperiidce (the Skippers) — occurs, sometimes abundantly, in certain woods about Rockingham and Kettering, and at Geddington Chase, Brigstock, Whittlebury Forest, Yardley Chase, and elsewhere in the county. This species is also found in a few woods in Huntingdonshire, Rutlandshire and Lincolnshire, and has been reported from one or two woods in Suffolk ; but it is probably nowhere more plentiful than in some of the Northamptonshire woods. To refer in detail to all the local Nocturni, Geometra, Drepanulidce, Pseudo-Bombyces, and Nocture found in the county, would occupy too much space, but Captain Vipan, who is better acquainted with the Macro-Lepidoptera of Northamptonshire than any one else, now living, in the United Kingdom, has kindly helped to compile the following list of butterflies and moths occurring in the county. 96