140 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



the majority of them were the result of last season's work. They 

 were : — Tapinostola helhnanni, Mamestrafurva, and Agrotis aquilina, all 

 taken at light at Hitchiu by Mr. A. H. Foster, of The Grange, Hitchin ; 

 Noctua f/Iareosa, captured on heather-bloom at Ashridge by Mr. A. H. 

 Goodson, of Tring ; Dicijda oo, taken at sugar in the garden by Miss 

 Alice Dickinson, of New Farm, St. Albans ; Polia chi, a very light 

 specimen, from larva taken at Hitchin on monkshood when searching 

 for pup^e of Plusia moneta ; Asthena si/lvata, taken in the same town at 

 light; Pyrausta aurata, of which, after diligent search, two specimens 

 were discovered near Tring by Mr. A. H. Goodson ; and Eriopsela 

 fractifasciana, beaten out of a hedge by Mr. Philip J. Barraud at 

 Aldbury. 



An interesting result of the work of the past few seasons had been 

 the confirmation of several records made by F. J. Stephens, the well- 

 known entomologist, in the earlier years of the nineteenth century, 

 thus re-establishing in the county list species which it was feared had 

 disappeared from Hertfordshire. Stephens, who was a clerk in the 

 Admiralty, in the formation of his famous collections made frequent 

 visits to many places in the vicinity of London, the neighbourhood of 

 Hertford being a favourite hunting-ground. In his ' Illustrations of 

 British Entomology ' are given a large number of records of Lepido- 

 ptera, Coleoptera, Orthoptera, Hymenoptera, and Neuroptera from 

 that locality, and these form the earliest, and in some cases the only, 

 local lists. So far as the Lepidoptera are concerned, these have been 

 collected together by Mr. John Hartley Durraut,F.E.S., and embodied 

 in a valuable paper, which is printed in the ' Transactions of the Hert- 

 fordshire Natural History Society.' The Coleoptera noted by Stephens 

 had been dealt with by Mr. E. Geo. Elliman in the first volume of the 

 * Victoria History of Hertfordshire,' and the comparatively few records 

 of insects of other orders had been by himself (Mr. Gibbs) in the same 

 work. In the ' Illustrations ' Stephens mentions Apatura iris as 

 occurring near Hertford in July, 1833, but from that time until the 

 present no record of the presence of the insect in the county had, so 

 far as he was aware, appeared. He was glad, however, to be able to 

 state that it was almost certain that A. iris was still to be found in 

 some of the larger woodlands. Mr. Foster, of Hitchin, had seen, but 

 not taken, it, and the keepers in two woods stated that they had seen 

 a beautiful purple butterfly settled on the dead animals in their 

 "larders." This evidence, although perhaps not absolutely conclusive, 

 was very suggestive, and he hoped another year would see A. iris 

 definitely re-instated in the county list. Other records of Stephens's 

 which after the lapse of many years had received confirmation were 

 Acontia Inctuosa, taken near Hitchin by Mr. Foster, and Myelophila 

 cribrella, captured at light at Cheshunt by Mr. Boyd. The year 1903 

 was, he thought, generally regarded by entomologists as one of the 

 worst seasons on record. The long-continued spell of cold wet weather 

 was, he thought, the chief cause of the scarcity of insects. The 

 bright interval in October appeared to have been the chief redeeming 

 feature of a bad year. For a few evenings at that time he found sugar 

 very attractive, one of the most abundant species in his garden being 

 Polia fiavicincta, of which insect and of Hi/pena rostralis, and one or 

 two others, he exhibited a long and varied series. In Hertfordshire, 



