THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 
Vou. XIII] NOVEMBER, 1880. [No. 210. 
THE MACRO-LEPIDOPTERA OF THE SHETLAND ISLES. 
By J. Jenner WeriIR, F.L.S., F.Z.S. 
(WITH A COLOURED PLATE.) 
Mr. Mees deserves the best thanks of entomologists for his 
spirited enterprise of sending a collector to these islands, who 
was there for nearly four months, viz., from the end of April 
until towards the end of August. I had the opportunity, through 
the courtesy of Mr. Meek, of inspecting the collection made, 
and I never saw any contribution to our knowledge of insular 
entomology so interesting, and, I think I may add, more in- 
structive. 
During the collector’s four months’ residence in the Shetlands 
twenty-five species of Macro-Lepidoptera were collected, some 
in tolerable plenty, and others were apparently more rarely met 
with: this no doubt partially arose from his devoting much time 
to making what may be deemed almost an exhaustive collection 
of the astonishing varieties and aberrations of Hepialus humuli, 
variety Hethlandica, Steyr. 
The Shetland Isles, excluding the two detached Islands of 
Foula and Fair Isle, lie between 59° 48’ and 60° 52’ N. lat., and 
between 52’ and 1° 57’ W. long., or between 8° and 9° farther 
north than London. ‘The isles are more isolated from Scotland 
than England is from the Continent; Lerwick, the capital, 
is 171 miles from Wick and 115 from Kirkwall, the capital of the 
Orkney Isles; between these latter islands and the Shetlands the 
distance of the nearest headlands, excluding Fair Isle, is about 
60 miles. This isolation has produced the usual result. Many 
of the Lepidoptera differ very materially in colour from those of 
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