220 The entomologist's record. 



gas-lamp at Brighton, by Mr. Winter [We learn, oj). cit., p. 25, that 

 his fuller name was "John N. Winter," and that he was of the Sussex 

 County Hospital, and Mr. Stevens says that he was house-surgeon 

 there] , and a coloured figure of the insect is given on the fnjndspiccc 

 to that volume. As Mr. Stevens tells us that Dr. Winter still resides 

 at Brighton, "John Bull "has in him exactly what he has been 

 wanting to hear of, viz., " a living lepidopterist who can honestly say 

 that he has captured at large (wild) a living specimen of H. iiitisculusa 

 in Britain." Again, in Ent. W/,\ Int., i., p. 154, Mr. A. J. Wigginton, 

 writing from the Sussex County Hospital, Brighton, on August 8th, 

 1856, says, " I took last evening a very beautiful specimen of S. 

 inuscidosa ;" whilst, on p. 173, Mr. Henry Cooke, of 8, Pelham Ter- 

 race, Brighton, under date August 25th, 1856, records the recent 

 capture by himself of an example, which was flying round a lamp in 

 that town. These two captures are alluded to in Knt. Ann., 1857, 

 p. 115. Then, in Knt. Wk. Int., v., p. 12, Dr. W. H. Allchin, of 

 Bayswater, has a note to the effect that he took a very fine S. inu.scu- 

 losa, which had been so identified by jMr. F. Bond, at rest on a flower 

 at Brighton, on August 15th, 1858; and in Jvnt. Ann., 1860, p. 140, 

 under the heading, " Rare British species captured in 1859," Mr. 

 Stainton says that at the September meeting (1859) of the Ent. Soc, 

 London, Dr. Allchin exhibited a specimen taken at Brighton. Pre- 

 sumably this latter was taken by Dr. Allchin, but was a different in- 

 dividual from the former, for Stainton notices it among the captures 

 of 1859, and thirteen months elapsed between Allchin's capture of 

 1858 and his exhibit of 1859. The above records, which are all the 

 reliable ones that occur to me, are sufficient to prove beyond dispute 

 that the species used to occur at Brighton some forty years ago, and 

 I have reason to believe that the sum total of specimens then taken 

 there certainly exceeded the number given as a minimum by Mr. 

 Stevens. It seems equally clear that it disappeared from there not 

 long afterwards [which accounts for the Salvages not having confined 

 their attention to their own "back doors!"] , and I have been informed 

 that this was due to its head-quarters having been built over. I know 

 nothing about the reputed Bexhill specimens in Mr, C. E. Fry's col- 

 lection, and cannot mention any authentic British captures made of 

 recent years, or made elsewhere than at Brighton. It is a well-known 

 fact that of nearly all the Lepidoptera that are very rare in Britain, 

 there are in collections in this country plenty of .'^n-rallcil " British " 

 specimens, which have no right whatever to the name ; but it seems 

 to me unwise to publicly question the occurrence of any species in 

 Britain when satisfactory published evidence of it is so easily acces- 

 sible ; and in the case of S. iinisculom, and numbers of other rarities 

 that I could name, the authentic rccardfil captures known to the many 

 are largely outnumbered by the ('(jnallij authentic unrccdnlnl ones, 

 known only to the few who are " behind the scenes." Eustace R. 

 Bankes, M.A., F.E.S., The Rectory, Corfe Castle. Srjd., 1896. 



CURRENT NOTES. 



We trust that Mr. Briggs will exhibit the specimen of the new 

 British moth (supposed to be ( 'aln])liasia idati/ptcr a), taken on September 

 14th, by Mr. J. T. Carrington, on the Sussex coast (between three and 



