NOTES ON COI.LECTrNO. 67 



As for the last pani.^nipli of Mr. Stevens' note, T dissent entirely, and 

 afifirin, from a close perusal of our old British authors, that reeo,i;nised 

 professional collectors (who advertise their trade) were never so honest 

 as now. We know so nnich more of our fauna, that a careless lie can 

 usually he nailed to the counter at once; to wit, the 'icjihrDiia 'htcraria 

 fraud of a few years ago. It is well known that a professional col- 

 lector actually hrought about the expme of that fraud by showing the 

 reputed locality to he impossible for the species. It is not that the 

 old dealers were more honest, rather that it was much less easy to 

 detect fraud. — John Bull. 



" Keflections and queries on the value of rare British 

 Lepidoptera." — Had your correspondent, " John Bull," studied the 

 ]'')it. Annual, to which serial he refers in his note under the above 

 heading {Knt. lire., vii., pp. ;-il6-8), he would have had no need to ask 

 " the real ground upon which l>. ramhurialis and K. catalannali.s are 

 considered British." The capture, by himself, of a specimen of the 

 former, at Probus, in Cornwall, on June Kith, IH'iH, is recorded by 

 Mr. Thomas Boyd in P^iit. \\'l.\ Int., iv., 1858, and again referred to in 

 Knt. Ann., 1859, p. 149, a coloured hgure of the species being given on 

 the plate ha that volume ; whilst the latter is introduced as British by 

 Mr. Staiiiton, in l\ni. Mn. Ma;/., iv., 152, on the strength of a 

 specimen taken at C'heshunt by Mr. W. C. Boyd, on September 18th, 

 18G7, the capture being again noticed in Ent. Ann., 1868, pp. 108-9, 

 and the species figured on the accompanying plate. It is, per- 

 haps, hardly necessary to add that the names of Mr. W. C. Boyd and 

 his cousin are more than sufficient guarantee for the genuineness of 

 these captures. lioth species have been taken in Britain more 

 recently, '■•■= but are of extremely rare occurrence. In his British 

 I'l/nili'lis (ISSG), ^Ir. J. H. Leech gives " Lewes, Folkestone, Dover, 

 Cornwall," as localities for I>. lanthuriali.s, and Portland must be 

 added, for one was taken there by the Rev. C. K. Digby, on July 11th, 

 18Ht) (Hilt. Mn. Mail.. WW, 881)'; while for /•;. ratahmnalis Mr. Leech 

 gives " neai' London, near Dover." It may interest " J. B." to know 

 that " W'ai'rcn's collection," which he quotes in connection with 

 Mrnina /Kili/i/Dnnli.s, has, I believe, throughout the catalogue of the Fry 

 sale, no reference to Mr. W. Warren, but is an error for " Waring's 

 collection," referring to Mi'. S. Waring, whose name on some, at any 

 rate, of the M.S. labels in Mr. Fry's drawers was wrongly spelt 

 " Warring." " J. V>." says of llddfno jn'm/rina that he believes 

 "there are two known J>ritisl] specimens which ]^>ond had": he 

 seems to be unaware of the existence of the /•,'//^ Mn. Ma;/, (as he 

 writes from London, it must be easily accessible to him in public or 

 ]irivate liljraries), in which, only last Jainiary (vol. xxxii.. 19-20), Mr. 

 'McLachlan drew attention to the fact that he has a specimen taken l)y 

 himself at Freshwater, in the Isle of Wight, on August 2Hrd, 1859, and 

 I'ccorded in the " Xnnloiiixt " for 1H59, p. ()781, and also in the /•>'>//. 

 Anil.. FS()0, p. 110. Mr. Sydney W'ebb could tell us whether Mr. 

 l)ond had more than the one specimen alluded to in I'-nt. Ann., 1859, 

 p. 147, and perhaps a search might disclose other records. " J. B." 

 asks why Mr. T. Salvage has never recorded the specimen of Oiihioih-H 

 /idiiiris tliat he took on j^righton racecourse. Probablv for the same 



* Will our correspondent give exact iffeiences and captrn's' names, please 

 leaving out Mr. Digby's capture? — En. 



