153 



THE LEPIDOPTERA OF LEYTON AND NEIGH- 

 BOURHOOD; A CONTRIBUTION TO THE 

 COUNTY FAUNA. 



I?y Prof. R. MKLDOLA, P'.Ti.S., &c., Vice-President Entomological Society. 



npHE publication of the first instalment of Mr. Fitch's paper (a/?/^, 

 -'■ pp. 74-108) has induced me to place upon record my own 

 experience as a collector in the above district. Any interest which 

 these records may possess is perhaps more of a personal than of a 

 scientific character, since they relate, for the most part, to a period 

 of about twenty years ago, when, as a novice, I first took up the 

 fascinating pursuit of butterfly and moth collecting with all the 

 enthusiasm of youth. The district referred to in these notes was 

 comprised by the garden attached to No. 8, Park Place, Leyton, 

 with the neighbouring parts of Epping Forest, more especially the 

 glades about " Rushey Plain " and "Gilbert's Slade," although 

 excursions were also frequently made to the more remote parts of 

 the Forest. Commencing in the autumn of the hot and dry season 

 of 1868, the various methods of collecting by netting on the wing, 

 sugaring, searching Cowers at night, attracting by light, breeding 

 from larvre, (S:c., were carried on without intermission on every 

 favourable day and evening, till we left the locality in 1870. After 

 this, collecting was still carried on in the district, but not so con- 

 tinuously. Fairly complete notes of captures from 1869 to 1874 

 have been kept, and most of the specimens are still in my collection 

 in as good a state of preservation as when taken off the setting- 

 boards twenty years ago. From these notes and specimens the 

 present list has been drawn up. As the locality at Leyton where 

 these captures were made is now being rapidly covered with build- 

 ings, it has appeared to me of sufficient interest to publish the present 

 list, both as a contribution to the County fauna and as a record of 

 the Lepidopterous population of a suburb which was at the time rural, 

 but which is now being gradually absorbed into the metropolis. 

 Fortunately from the naturalists' point of view, however, Leyton stiil 

 is, and always must be, cut off from London to the north by the Lea 

 valley and the low-lying marsh and meadow lands bordering that 

 river. 



In the list now given, it must be understood that, unless sjjecially 



