1904.] 135 



NOTES ON LEPIUOPTERA FROM HERTFORDSHIRE. 



BY A. E. GIBBS, F.L.S. 



At a meeting of tlio Hertfordshire Natural History Society on March 29th, 

 Mr. B. Day don- Jackson, Sec. Linn. Soc, President, in the Chair. Mr. A. E. Oibbs, 

 F.L.S. , Recorder of tlie Insecta, presented a report on the Lepidoptera observed in 

 the county principally during 1903. It was, he said, satisfactory, at the close of a 

 season which had proved so disappointing to collectors, to be able to announce the 

 addition to the county list of no less than nine species of Lepidoptera, bringing up 

 the total number of species on the county list to 1158. It was true that these 

 records could not all be credited to 1903, but the majority of them were the result 

 of the past season's work. The new species were (1) Tapinostola heUmanni, taken 

 at light by Mr. A. H. Foster, of The Grange, Hitchin. This same observer had 

 also discovered four other specimens of T. heUmanni in the collect ion of Mr. William 

 Hill, of the same town, which are believed to have been taken locally, but the 

 evidence was not sufSciently clear to permit them to be recorded as genuine 

 Hertfordshire specimens. As 2\ heUmanni is a Fen insect occurring in Cambridge- 

 shire and Huntingdonshire, it is not altogether to be wondered at that it should 

 find its way across the county border. (2), Mamestra furva: Mr. Foster took a 

 specimen of this West Country insect at light at Hitchin in 1902, and in the same 

 way captured (3) Agrotis aquilina in 1903. (4), Noctua glareosa was found by 

 Mr. A. T. Goodson, of Tringley, searching the heather bloom on Ashi-idge Common 

 at night. (5), one of the most interesting captures of the year was that of Dicycla 

 00 which was taken at sugar on an apple tree in the garden at New Farm, 

 St. Albans, on July 15th, by Miss Alice Dickinson ; it is to be hoped that Dicycla 

 00 has come to stay. (6), PoUa chi was bred by Mr. Foster in 1902, from a 

 larva found at Hitchin on Monkshood, when searching for pupae of Plusia moneta. 

 The specimen is a remarkably light one. (7), Asthena sylvata was taken at light at 

 Hitchin by Mr. Foster in 1902. (8), two examples of that beautiful little pyralid, 

 Pyrausta aurata, were taken by Mr. A. H. Goodson ou the Buckinghamshire border 

 at Dancer's End. (9), the only Tortrix added to the list in 1903 was Eriopsela 

 fractifasciana, taken by Mr. Philip J. Barraud, who obtained two specimens by 

 beating a hedge at Aldbury on May 25th. Most of the above nine additions to the 

 insect fauna of the county were exhibited by Mr. Gibbs, who also had on view other 

 Lepidoptera taken in Hertfordshire and elsewhere, including long and varied series 

 of PoUa Jlavieincta and Ilypena rostraUs, which had been unusually abundant, at 

 sugar in his garden at St. Albans, during the bright spell of autumn weather in 

 October. Mr. Gibbs further remarked that an interesting result of the work of 

 local Lepidopterists during the last few seasons had been the confirmation of several 

 records made by Mr. F. J. Stephens in the early years of the 19th century, thus 

 re-establishing in tlie county list species which it was feared had disappeared from 

 Hertfordshire. In the " Illustrations of British Entomology " the Purple Emperor, 

 Apatura iris, is stated to have occurred near Hertford in July, 1833, " and," 

 continued Mr. Gibbs, " from that time until now, so far as I am aware, no note of 

 the presence of this insect in the county has appeared. I am glad to learn that 

 there is a likelihood, amounting almost to a certainty, that it is still with us, and 1 

 sincerely hope that in next year's report I may be able to definitely reinstate the 



