74 



THE LEPIDOPTERA OF ESSEX. 

 PART I.— BUTTERFLIES. 



By EDWARD A. FITCH, F.L.S., F.E.S., etc. 

 [Read December 2nd, i8go.'\ 



OF the sixty-five British butterflies, fifty-five have been known to 

 occur within our borders — a larger number than I can find 

 recorded for any other county. Mr. Porritt's Yorkshire Hst of 

 Lepidoptera includes forty-eight species of Diurni, and the Rev. E. N. 

 Bloomfield is now able to catalogue fifty-four species, and three 

 doubtful records, for Suffolk. Mr. Cockerell gives forty-one species 

 for Middlesex, several of which are certainly doubtful records. 

 Hence our district may be looked upon as rich in species, and the 

 individuals in many cases are fairly numerous. With regard to the 

 completeness of this catalogue it is only necessary to observe that it 

 contains notes of all the species that have been recorded, as far as 

 a tolerably exhaustive survey of our general entomological literature 

 enables me to judge. No MSS. or " Marked Lists " have been asked 

 for, or used in its compilation ; there is always so much difficulty in 

 authenticating captures, and in getting notes of precise localities. 

 With the aid of our Club and the Essex Naturalist, it is to be 

 hoped that many local lists may yet be forthcoming, similar to those 

 we have already published by the Rev. G. H. Raynor {Trans. 

 E.F.C. iii. 30-47) and Mr. Howard Vaughan {E.N. iii. 123-140.). 

 These local lists are interesting and helpful, and act as a stimulus to 

 others to endeavour to make additions to the records in their own 

 immediate localities. Several such lists are already promised, and 

 the publication of the present general list for the whole county will 

 in no way make them less useful. 



My catalogue cannot be considered as complete ; we know there 

 arc yet many unexplored spots in Essex, and there are few localities 

 that have been at all exhaustively worked (cf. my remarks, E.N. iii. 

 98-99.) Only this year a new butterfly has been added to the British 

 list, and it was first found in Essex (F. W. Hawes, Ent. xxiii. 3). 

 Hesperia lineola has been an overlooked species, and thought to be 

 only a variety of the common H. thaiimas. Mr. Hawes took his 

 specimens in what is now but the remnant of an old locality. Hartley 

 Wood, a spot t'lat lias been well worked for at least a century {see Miss 



