Page:VCH Kent 1.djvu/229

 INSECTS greater abundance of specimens ; but over cultivation, over population, the destruction of old woods, drainage and the spread of the metro- politan area vvrith its buildings and smoke have, during the last half a century, considerably reduced the numbers of species and specimens, at any rate in the north-western part of the county, which has been almost absorbed by London suburbs. Such species however as occur in this country chiefly by immigration from the continent are more commonly taken in the south-east, east and north-east of Kent than in any other part of the United Kingdom. RHOPALOCERA Butter Jiies^ The Wood White [Leucophasia sinapis, L.) was formerly common in many woods in the county, and has been recorded from the Blean Woods ^ between Canterbury and Heme Bay, from Sturry, Pembury, Wateringbury,' Tunbridge Wells, Tenterden, and from Darenth and Birch Woods. From the two localities last named and from the rest of the metropolitan district it has long disappeared. It still occurs spar- ingly in some of the woods in the county, but is extinct in most of the localities where it was formerly common. The Black-veined White {Aporia cratagi, L.) was, up to five- and-thirty or forty years ago, a common species in the county, occur- ring plentifully about Sheerness, Ramsgate, Heme Bay, Wye, Ashford, Selling, Shottenden, Sturry, Maidstone, Chattenden, Rochester and Strood. Excepting in an orchard district in east Kent, it disappeared from the county about 1868 or 1869 and is now practically extinct in Kent, as it is in Sussex, Hampshire, Gloucestershire, Northamptonshire, Huntingdonshire, Monmouthshire, Glamorganshire and other counties where it formerly abounded. Possibly, if unmolested, the species* may increase its area and be again established in the county under favourable climatic conditions. The Large Cabbage White {Pieris brassica, L.), the Small Cabbage White (P. rapa, L.) and the Green-veined White (P. napi, L.) are generally distributed through- out the county and are more or less abundant according to the season. That rare butterfly the Bath White (P. daplidice^ L.) has been on the north-east, east and south-east coast, as about Heme Bay, Ramsgate, Deal and Dover. Dr. Knaggs in his Macro-Lepidoptera of Folkestone (1870) says, ^Machaon has been met with year after year on the East Cliff, Dover, beyond the castle.' Mr. A. B. Farn informs me that a few larvs were found feeding on rue in a herbalist's garden at Stone near Dartford in 1874, and the larvae have also several times been found in the neighbourhood of Faversham. At the present day the species in a truly wild condition, in this country, is confined to Wicken Fen, Cambridgeshire, and to the fens in the Norfolk Broads. The specimens seen or captured in Kent in recent years were doubtless immigrants from the continent, or escapes. — H. G. 2 Mr. Charles Fenn records the species from the Blean Woods. — H. G. 3 Mr. Edward Goodwin of Canon Court, Wateringbury, states that Mr. R. H. Fremlin used to take this species commonly at Wateringbury forty years ago, but that it has long been extinct there. — H. G. was no difficulty in collecting the pupae from the stems of the blackthorn. — H. G. 179
 * Stragglers of the Swallow-tail {Papilio machaon, L.) have occasionally been captured or observed
 * Mr. A. B. Farn says it was very abundant in the Chattenden woods in the late ' fifties,' and there