NOTES, CAPTURES, ETC. Q15 
“ County Police,” which would also be useful to the entomologist, as the 
light can be switched on and off instantly. This appears to be the very thing 
for a sugaring expedition.—Ep. 
Own Locat Lists.—The Rev. G. H. Raynor (ante, p. 195) expresses 
Surprise that I have not advertised a request to be supplied with local lists 
of Lepidoptera. I considered the desirability of doing so, but came to the 
conclusion that. it was not absolutely necessary, since, besides a vast amount 
of personal experience, and the enormous mass of information comprised in 
this and other magazines, I am, through the kindness of friends and 
correspondents, supplied with most of the published lists, and with others 
in MS. But I would not for a moment suggest that further information 
would not be desirable and welcome, and, if Mr. Raynor will furnish me 
with such a list of his own numerous captures, I shall feel greatly obliged 
to him: further, if, from this suggestion of his, collectors in other districts 
should be stirred up to contribute fresh and reliable material, I shall be 
equally thankful. There is one difficulty in asking for lists: it seems to 
include an obligation to accept them, faults and all. And nowhere does 
there seem to be a greater risk of error than in compiling a local list. 
Every species that somebody thought that he saw, and every one that has 
been wrongly named, is sure to creep in, and no one, except he has tried it, 
has any clear idea of the difficulty of sifting out the truth and avoiding the 
errors. The same may, of course, be said of magazine records; and here 
are materials close at hand for illustration :—On page 197 the capture of 
Tapinostola eatrema in Staffordshire is recorded, without a word of con- 
firmation, or even any indication that the (supposed) captor has any idea 
how improbable is the statement. Tupinostola extrema has been a lost 
species for thirty or forty years, and although it has, within the last three 
years, been rediscovered somewhere in the fen country, it is almost certainly 
confined to a small part of that district. But I am open to conviction, 
of course. If the moth is found to be 7’. extrema (concolor), it will add to 
our information. To take another case. In a paragraph at p. 196, quoted 
from the ‘ Field’ newspaper, the writer states that fifty-one years ago he 
took, at Yaxley Fen, Huntingdonshire, “several fine examples of Lycena 
dispar, and the scarce copper L. virgauree.” Here it is hardly possible to 
escape the impression that he mistook one of the sexes of L. dispar for 
virgauree ; and this impression is strengthened when he goes on to say, 
after mentioning that he captured some rare moths, that “ the food-plants 
of these rare British flies being extirpated, the flies themselves have all 
disappeared.” The food-plants im question would be the great water-dock 
(Rumea hydrolapathum), the golden-rod (Solidago virgaurea), and probably 
the sallow, the sweet gale, the common reed, and the sedge (Cladium 
mariscus); and to say that these have been extirpated would draw some 
expressions of surprise from any botanist or entomologist. I do not point 
to these instances in a carping spirit, but only to suggest the desirability 
of accuracy in local lists and records. — Cuas. G. Barretr; 39, Linden 
Grove, Nunhead. 
VaRIETIES OF EPINEPHELE HYPERANTHUS.—I obtained a few eggs from 
a fine but normally marked female H. hyperanthus, taken in the New Forest 
in July last year; they hatched in August, seven larve survived the 
winter, became pup by the end of June, and seven fine imagines emerged 
during July last, four males and three females, Three of them—two males 
