XXIII. 



NOTES OX LEPIDOPTERA OBSERVED IX HERTFORDSHIRE 

 DURIXG THE YEAR 189-i. 



By A. E. GiBBs, P.L.S., F.E.S. 

 Read at Watford, 2Zrd April, 1894. 



The year 1894 was marked by a dearth of insect-life, so far, at 

 least, as the Lepidoptera are concerned. Whether this was due to 

 the excessively wet season following the very dry sixmmer of 1893, 

 I cannot say, but it is probable that meteorological conditions were 

 the chief cause of it. All my correspondents tell the same tale of 

 vrant of success. " Sugaring " locally yielded no results, and a few 

 days in July spent in the New Forest, where insects are generally 

 very abundant, proved most disappointing. Mr. Arthur Lewis 

 and your Recorder tramped many miles, visiting plantation after 

 plantation, only to return home with empty boxes. 



Mr. S. H. Spencer, jun., of "Watford, says that while he found 

 the sallows in his neighbourhood very productive, sugaring was 

 quite a failure, although the evenings selected for this work were 

 such as are known in the ordinary way to be good ones. A great 

 many Geometers and a few Noctuae were taken by him on the 

 lamps, and he expressed the opinion that "lamping" was fairly 

 successful on the whole. 



I regret that the number of our local observers is falling off. 

 One gentleman — Mr. Pilbrow — who has in past years supplied me 

 with valuable infonnation from Colney Heath, has left the neigh- 

 bourhood, and others have been too much occupied by business and 

 other engagements to devote their time to Entomology. My report 

 this year will therefore be a short one. 



BtlTTERFLIES. 



Mr. A. C. Smith, of St. Peter's Street, St. Albans, brought to me 

 a specimen of the large tortoise-shell butterfly ( Vanessa polychloros) 

 which he captured in his house. This is the first specimen of this 

 insect which I have seen alive in St. Albans for some years. I 

 alluded in my last report to the fact that it is getting scarce in 

 Hertfordshire, and Messrs. F. Latchmore and Harold Gatward, 

 of Hitchin, again write that the large tortoise-shell " is not nearly 

 so common here as it was a few years back." It is interesting to 

 notice that Miss E. A. Ormerod has included this butterfly amongst 

 the injiirious insects of 1894, and has devoted a chapter to it in 

 her last annual * Report of Observations of Injurious Insects.' Mr. 

 D. D. Gibb, of Ossemsley Manor Farm, Lymington, wrote to Miss 

 Ormerod on the 19th of June asking advice as to dealing with a 

 cateiinllar-infestation, a cherry-tree on his lawn having been 

 stripped of its leaves in a very rapid manner. The larvae proved 

 to be those of the large tortoise-shell butterfly, and they were easily 

 found and destroyed. Miss Ormerod points out that, "generally 



