1897.] 187 



Malcolm Burr, a few insects from the island of Socotra, and said that at a casual 

 glance the Fauna seemed to represent a transition from the Palsearctic to the Ethi- 

 opian Region. Mr. Lucas, Ichneumons which had emerged this year from last year's 

 cocoons of Zi/gcena trifoUi, and also an earwig {Chelisoches morio) from Java, of which 

 species two examples have recently been taken at Kew. In the discussion several 

 curious instances of parasitism were noted. Mr. Tutt mentioned a parasite on the 

 larvae of Melitcea Aurinia, which had three separate emergences during life of its 

 host. Mr.Hall said that a particular ichneumon was entirely confined to the young 

 stage of Cucullia verbasci. Mr. Adkin, a series of both captured and bred specimens 

 of TcBwiocampa gothica from Loch Loggan ; the captured examples were largely 

 gotJiicina forms, while the latter were very typical, although the ova were from 

 females of the former variety. — Ht. T. Turner, Hon. Secretary. 



LOCAL LISTS OF BRITISH LEPIDOPTERA. 

 BY CHAS. G. BAREETT, F.E.S. 



In the course of an attempt to arrive at the actual distribution 

 in these islands of some of the rather more obscure British species, I 

 find myself more than previously impressed with the great value of 

 carefully and accurately drawn up local lists. It is not only that the 

 range of species well known to have but a local distribution requires 

 to be accurately ascertained, but that species usiially held to be 

 everywhere abundant prove to be averse here and there to limited 

 districts. One instance will illustrate this as well as a dozen. Few 

 species are more generally common in this country than Hadena 

 oleracea ; a constant inhabitant of gardens, it also affects cultivated 

 lands, fields, waysides, river sides, and ditches, even the margins of 

 salt marshes, and other sub-saline spots, in greater or less abundance; 

 yet in the seven or eight years during which I worked assiduously the 

 Haslemere district — portions of Surrey, Sussex and Hants — I saw in 

 all but two specimens of this species. 



I have before me a paper of admirable intention — a plan, with 

 rules, for a proposed " Fauna of the Counties of Kent, Surrey, Sussex, 

 Hants and Berks " — of the Counties, that is, lying south of the Thames 

 and most nearly approaching the Metropolis. This plan was brought 

 forward by the South London Entomological Society in 1886, and 

 apparently with considerable support and good hope of successful 

 completion within a reasonable time. The subject was brought up 

 again the following year by the President of that Society, but I regret 

 to say that very little has been heard of it since. It was probably an 

 undertaking too extensive, abstruse and elaborate to be carried out 

 by the Members of that Society ; but if even the Lepidoptera (of 



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