CUKKKM' NOTES. 168 



value of the book, we trust that everyone interested in Hiitish and 

 Continental butterflies will support so excellent and useful a venture. 

 The price of 4s. 8d. to subscribers cannot be considered prohibitive. 



\Ve are in receipt of A List of Lepidoptera fuund in the counties of 

 Che>ihire, Flii2tsliire, I)enbi(ihi<hire, C'arnarro)ishire and Awflesea/'- by 

 George 0. Day, F.E.S., who has been aided in his work by Messrs. 

 Arkle, Dobie, and Newstead. There can be no doubt tliat this is one 

 of the best local lists published, and will rank with those of Yorkshire 

 (Porritt), Lancashire (Ellis), Northumberland and Durham (Robson), 

 Suffolk (Bloonifield), Sussex (Jenner), Gloucester and Somerset 

 (Hudd), &c., many of which, however, now want bringing up-to-date, 

 not by supplements, but by the publication of a new edition. It runs 

 out to 120 pages, has a good specific index, is exceedingly well printed, 

 includes all the lepidoptera except the superfamilies formerly included 

 as Tineina, and appears to be carefully and thoroughly well done. We 

 have no doubt that it will be of the greatest service to us in our own 

 work, and many other lepidopterists will no doubt thank Mr. Day and 

 his helpers for their excellent work. 



Mr. Pierce has a paper in the April number of the Entomo- 

 loi/ifit on the genitalia in the Lithosiids. He finds that those of 

 Lithosia complana and L. var. sericea are not distinguishable, and is 

 inclined to consider these insects specifically distinct. He leaves, how- 

 ever, the question of the specific value of sericea much as it has been 

 for half a century. It should be in the power of the active Lancashire 

 and Cheshire lepidopterists to work out a simple problem of compari- 

 son ; they can get ova of both forms for comparison (and for photo- 

 graphing), they should be able to get larvae in sufficient numbers to 

 see whether Buckler's difterences are real or only within the limits of 

 the larval variation of one species; the pupse, too, should be submitted 

 to Dr. Chapman. It appears to us that Mr. Pierce's statement that 

 "he does not think that the variety theory has at all been proved," is 

 beside the mark. It is surely for those who set up a new species to 

 prove its specific distinctness by a diagnosis that separates it satisfac- 

 torily from all other species, and that is just at present what we 

 aver has not been clearly done. 



Mr. J. Edwards notes {Ent. Mo. Ma;)., April) that he has examined 

 the genitalia of one of the Hesperia alreus, reported some time since as 

 having been captured in Norfolk many years previous to their having 

 been recorded, and finds it to be really this species. He thinks that 

 the butterfly is to be regarded as a survival of the ancient fauna of 

 Central Norfolk and that there is no need to attempt to account for its 

 occurrence by immigration or accidental introduction along with 

 plants. This leaves us only two other views, viz., that the captor 

 mixed unwittingly his Continental and British captures, or that it is 

 a native of Cawston. If it be a native of Cawston why was the species 

 not earlier detected, and why has the species not been since found 

 there ? Like several other common butterflies there is no reason 

 whatever why this species should not occur in Britain, the only fact 

 that we know at present about the matter is that it does not appear to 

 do so. 



Recently Dr. Dyar criticised {Can. Ent.) some of our facts re tlie 



* Published at The Grosvenor Museum, Chester. Price 23. 6d. 



