18!I7.] 211 



11. Strongylognsler cincjulatus, F. — ^Though the ? of this is common, the $ is 

 said to be extremely rare. Mr. Cameron (Mon., i, p. 189) says, "I have only suc- 

 ceeded in getting one (? , which I bred," and " Mr. F. Smith . . . has taken in 

 all only five or six males." This spring, at Swanage, I found both sexes abundant 

 on ferns. I took five males, and could easily have secured a long series if I had 

 known that there was any object in doing so.* 



Further remarks I reserve for a future occasion. I have already 

 alluded to the unfortunate fact that some of my specimens are 

 " carded," and therefore not determinable vrith certainty. At Herr 

 Konow's advice I have wholly abandoned this method of preparing 

 TenthredinidtiB, and venture to call the attention of collectors to a 

 sentence in one of his letters, which I shall personally always bear in 

 mind in future — " Aufgeklebte Hymeaoptern fiir wissenschaftliche 

 Untersuchungen vollig unbrauchtbar sind." Generally, in the Ten- 

 thredinidas, it is as necessary to examine the ventral surface as much 

 as the dorsal, and sometimes {e. g., in Tenthredopsis) even more so. 

 iSometimes, too, an insect is not determinable for certain without a 

 good view of the mouth, or the mesopleurse, or the under-side of the 

 legs, or the claws, all which parts are liable to be hidden in carded 

 specimens 



Woking: August 12th, 1897- 



Local Lists of British Lepidoptera. — One would suppose that all the workers 

 in the broad field of Natural History, more particularly those who make the British 

 insect fauna their chief study, would thoroughly endorse Mr. Barrett's remarks 

 {ante p. 187) on the usefulness of local lists ; but as one of the sponsors to the 

 " Fauna of the Counties of Kent, &c.," proposed by the South London Society, to 

 which he refers, I have grave reason for doubt whether any great amount of interest 

 is taken in such matters by the general body of Entomologists. Such lists to be of 

 any real value must be accurate, well up to date, and something more than mere 

 lists of names, and it was upon these lines that the South London Society proposed 

 to work. Evidently to attain such ends, something more than the " dry bones " of 

 published I'ecords would have to be resorted to, and the co-operation of a large 

 number of workers throughout the districts embraced in the scheme would have to 

 be sought. With a view to obtaining this, a note, accompanied in many cases by a 

 plan, &c., was widely circulated and accepted in a manner that appeared to portend 

 a successful result ; but the extreme apathy ultimately manifested, especially by 

 those outside the Society, proved only too clearly the utter want of interest in such 

 matters by the general body of Entomologists. Under such circumstances it is not 

 surprising that the somewhat elaborate machinery that the Society had prepared for 

 carrying out the project has been allowed to remain at a standstill.— Robt. Adkin, 

 Lewisham : August, 1897. 



* I found the males commonly near Croydon at the end of May and beLnninuH- of June, 1867 

 -R. McL. ■ 



