[ 217 J 



IRISH MOTHS. 



A Catalogue of the Lepldoptera of Ireland. ByW. F. de V. 

 Kane, m.a. Entomologist, 1893-4. (Sphinges and Bombyces from Septem- 

 ber, 1893, to July, 1894.) 



Six years' Entomology in Co. Calway. By Hon. R. E. 



Dii,i,on. Entomologist, March, May, and June, 1S94. 



In the Irish Naturalist for March (p. 56) we noticed the commencement 

 of Mr. Kane's valuable list, and summarised the result of his work on 

 the Irish butterflies. By this time he has dealt with the families of 

 moths generally known as " Sphinges and Bombyces," and his account 

 of their Irish representatives will be gladly welcomed by entomologists 

 here and in Great Britain. A comparison of the new list with Birchall's 

 shows that Mr. Kane has found it necessary to expunge not a few 

 erroneous records, as well as to add new species. Of the hundred and 

 fifty-one British Moths in the families under consideration, just a 

 hundred were inserted in the Irish list by Birchall. Two of these — 

 Ocneria dispar and Pygara anachoreta owed their places only to caterpillars 

 which the recorder himself turned out, the former on the Killarney 

 moors, the latter at Howth ; consequently they have no more right to be 

 considered Irish animals than the Fallow Deer in Phoenix Park, or the 

 Black Swans in St. Stephen's Green, have to rank among the vertebrates 

 of County Dublin. Thirty years ago the importance of an accurate 

 knowledge of animal distribution was not recognised, but to-day a wilful 

 falsification of the geographical record should be considered a serious 

 offence by naturalists ; we are somewhat shocked to find that Mr. Kane 

 not only fails to reprobate such a proceeding, but confesses to have 

 himself let loose larvae of 0. dispar in County Sligo ! 



Of the ninety-eight remaining species of the 1866 list, four — Deilophila 

 euphorbia, Clisiocampa castrensis, Notodonta buolor, and N. trilophus — were 

 withdrawn by Birchall in 1873, and three others — Sesia culiciformis, 

 Lilhosia complana, and Sarrothripus undulanns, were added. Mr. Kane con- 

 firms these additions, and re-instates Notodonta bicolor. But he omits so 

 man)' as fifteen of Birchall's moths — Sesia for miciformis, Hepialus lupnlinus, 

 Nola citcullatella, N. strigula, Lithosia mesomella, Callimorpha dominula, Arctia 

 villica, Porthesia chrysorrhaa, P. similis, Psihira monacha, Endromis versicolor, 

 Lasiocampa trifolii, Cymatophora octogesima, Asphalia dilula, and A.flavicornis — 

 some of which were even recorded in 1866 as "common." We conclude 

 that Mr. Kane has, in each case, information which has inclined him to 

 regard the determination as untrustworthy, and that he has failed to con- 

 firm the insect's occurrence in Ireland by personal observation. It seems 

 however that Hepiahis hipulimis must be replaced in the list, as Mr. C. 

 G. Barrett states, in the second volume of his work on British Lepidoptera, 

 now in course of publication, that he has himself taken this species in 

 County Galway. 



The various additions which have from time to time been made to 

 Birchall's list have been investigated by Mr. Kane, with the result that 

 some, specially among those recorded by the late Mr. Sinclair in the Sci, 



