www.ukbutterflies.co.uk

Thanks Charles!

I have since found one or two web pages where things are described as being of this colour, tabac d'espagne (birds, as it happens) and so I'm sure you're right.

Guy

Hi Annie,
Welcome onboard. I've not been on here for long either, but I'll happily be Bamber Gasgoine on your behalf. Lots of very knowledgeable folk playing the game, so an unrelated three-parter might slow things down a bit - perhaps.
1) Which famous entomologist first described the A272 as 'the highway of the Emperor's world'?
2) Which species was known as 'Mr Dandridge's Dark Fritillary' in the late 17th/early 18th century?
3) Which butterfly lives in fear of L. nycthemerus?
Neil

hee hee, I know the answer to number one - I think!

The answer to the third question is certainly Holly Blue. The first question could be IRP Heslop (am I correct Annie?)
But the second one has me stumped off the top of my head - I shall have to look it up when I get home...

Felix

Hot stuff Felix, getting very close - but you can't skip question number 2
Neil

Felix wrote:The first question could be IRP Heslop (am I correct Annie?)

you've got more copies of Notes and Views than me - so I think you're eminently more qualified to answer that question!

Is number 2, "Which species was known as 'Mr Dandridge's Dark Fritillary' in the late 17th/early 18th century?" also known as Dandridges midling Black Fritillary? Eurodryas aurinina? marsh fritillary?

1. Heslop
2. Grizzled Skipper
3. Holly Blue

Nice one Matsukaze!

Neil, that was a gooood question..!

Felix.

Congratulations Matsukaze (and to Felix for getting most of the way). Your turn Matsukaze. You might not get a rapid response from me, cos tonight I will be mainly drunk!
Neil

Which now-scarce butterfly was recorded 100 years ago near Newmarket, Brean Down in Somerset, Lulworth, and Notting Hill, and now can only be found at the first three of those places?

Good to see a mention of Joseph Dandridge who is the subject of one of my favourite paragraphs in butterfly books, from "The Aurelian Legacy":

The then outlying village of Stoke Newington, where Dandridge had gone to live for health reasons in the 1720s, remembered him long after his death. One James Brown recalled that 'he pursued his [butterflying] sport with so much eagerness as to give rise to stories which came down to my time'. On one occasion he was spotted wildly lunging at the air for no apparent reason. Taking him for a lunatic, a farm labourer caught Dandridge by the arms and wrestled him to the ground. The labourer's suspicions seemed amply confirmed by Dandridge's wail of dismay: 'The Purple Emperor's gone! The Purple Emperor's gone!'

Chalkhill Blue?

Trev

It is indeed.

http://caliban.mpiz-koeln.mpg.de/~stueb ... _9005.html

"A History of British Butterflies", Francis Orpen Morris, 1870.

Which two British butterflies, belonging to different families, have actually swapped names with each other during the past couple of hundred years
to arrive at the names we use today?

Trev

Mmm... I've seen the northern brown described as the Scotch argus. Is it possible the Scotch argus was once known as the northern brown argus? Or even as the mountain argus (another name for Aricia artaxerxes)?

Guy

Not as far as I know Guy.
Certainly not the pair I was thinking of anyway.

Any more guesses?

Trev

I suspected someone would get the answer to my question quite quickly, but apparently not... maybe it's 'cos the site was not available yesterday for a while, but just maybe the answer is less well-known than I thought

"Which two British butterflies, belonging to different families, have actually swapped names with each other during the past few hundred years to arrive at the names we use today?"

Trev

Could it be the gatekeeper which was at one time known as the large heath ?

charles


ps i have to go out... so if you need a question how about "Which John Fowles novel featured a keen lepidopterist ?"

Nope. Sorry Charles...
The butterflies I'm thinking of both swapped names with each other.

Trev