I04 ^^f^c Irish Naturalist. [ April, 



LEUCANIA UNIPUNCTA, HAW. IN CO. CORK. 



BY W. F. DE V. KANE, M.A., F-E.S. 



Leiicania unipimda, Haw. {extranca, Gn.) has been taken 

 a second time in Ireland. The first record is that of the Hon. 

 R. E. Dillon, who captured one specimen at Clonbrock, Co. 

 Galwa)% at sugar in September some years ago, in whose 

 cabinet it is preserved Lately I received an example of the 

 same insect from Mr R. J. F. Donovan, a younger brother of 

 Dr. C Donovan, now abroad, whose collections at Glandore, 

 Co. Cork, and that neighbourhood, proved of great service in 

 extending our knowledge of the distribution of interesting 

 species and varieties of Lepidoptera on the little-known south 

 coast of Ireland. Mr. R. J. F. Donovan is now taking up the 

 study of this section of our Irish fauna in a locality somewhat 

 removed from the former ; namely, Timoleague and Courtmac- 

 sherry Bay. He has commenced well by taking this interesting 

 moth at sugar on the 13th September last. The specimen is 

 a small one, but well marked, and it now forms a part of my 

 collection b}- his kindness. But few have ever occurred in 

 Great Britain, all I believe on the south coast of England. 

 The larva is the " army worm " of the Americans, and com- 

 mits great devastations on the crops. A notice of this moth 

 having appeared in swarms last summer on the coast of New 

 Hampshire (Mass.) is quoted in last month's Entomologist from 

 an American Entomological periodical. It appears to have 

 an immense range of distribution — all America, Japan, China, 

 India, Melanesia, Australia, New Zealand, Madeira, etc., but 

 it is unknown in Continental Europe according to Staudinger. 

 It now seems probable that it may be indigenous in Ireland, 

 as our southern shores are to a large extent unknown and un- 

 worked by collectors, and its occurrence in Galway quite 

 harmonises with what we know of the similarity of the ento- 

 mological fauna of the South and West. 



