Ocneria dispar in Britain. 



By Robert Adkin, F.E.S. — Ju'dd Febriianj lOtli, 1916. 



Pi'obably the occurrence of Ocneria dixpar in this country and its 

 subsequent more or less complete disappearance, have given rise to 

 more controversy than similar phenomena in regard to any other 

 species that we are pleased to call British. I suppose that the 

 present day lepidopterist, if he troubles his head about the matter 

 at all, is content to assume that the species was common in " the 

 fens " up to about the middle of the last century, when it, like 

 another fen loving species and namesake, Chri/sophauKs dispar, 

 suddenly disappeared. So far so good, but is that all? 



So far as 1 have been able to trace, our oldest writers were not 

 acquainted with the species. Moufet's " Insectorum Theatrum," 

 1634 ; Ray's " Historia Insectorum," 1710 ; and Petiver's " Opera 

 Historiam Naturalem Spectantia," 1764, are all difficult to follow, 

 but so far as I have been able to follow them, no mention of any 

 species that will pass for (). dispar is included in them, neither does 

 Stephens in his Catalogue refer to any of these authors under this 

 species. I ought perhaps to say that llaworth in his " Lepidoptera 

 Britannica," among a long list of references to various authors, 

 chiefly coutmental, quotes Albin's " Natural History of English 

 Insects," 1720, plate 93. Fortunately Albin, on practically all his 

 plates, figured both larva and imago. On plate 93 is depicted an 

 undoubted Geometrid larva and an equally unmistakable Geometrid 

 imago, which he tells us the larva produced ; these figures cannot 

 therefore be intended for (J. dispar — no names are given throughout 

 the work — nor is there any figure on any of his " One hundred 

 plates" that can be taken to represent that insect; neither does 

 Moses Harris, who by the way does give English names to all his 

 insects and Latin names also to many of them, make any mention 

 of the " Gipsy Moth " in the " Aurelian " published in 1766. All 

 these old writers appear to have been ardent collectors, and I think 

 we may fairly assume that they had not recognised O. dispar as a 

 British species. 



The first mention I find of the species is in Benjamin Wilkes' 

 "Natural History of the Moths and Butterflies," published in 1778, 

 I believe, so far as regards letterpress, but the plates appear to have 

 been published somewhat earlier ; at any rate he figures the insect 

 in all its stages and tells us that a Mr. Peter CoUinson received a 

 nest of eggs from Germany, gave them to one Charles Lockyer, Esq., 



