YORKSHIRE NATURALISTS UNION. 7 1 



YOEKSHIRE MACRO-LEPIDOPTERA in 1878. 



By G. T. PORRITT, F.L.S., Huddersfielu, 

 Secretary of the Ento?nological Section. 



It is with a feeling of reluctance that we commence to write 

 the record of work done in our county during 1878. The hope 

 expressed in the concluding paragraph of last year's report has 

 not been reaHzed; indeed, if possible the season of 1878 was 

 even worse than that preceding it. It has gone hardly for that 

 fairly numerous band of young lepidopterists who have com- 

 menced the science during the last three or four years, as they 

 have never }'et had a fair chance of making even a moderate start. 

 We fear some, but we hope not many, will have been sorely 

 tempted to give up the pursuit in disgust, and to turn, if not away 

 from natural history study altogether, at least to some other at 

 present apparently more interesting branch of it. To such we 

 can only say — wait a little longer still— our county is not so 

 dreary as it seems, and good seasons, probably continuous ones, 

 will assuredly come even as they have done in days gone by. 

 Just now there is great ground for hope, for has it not always 

 been an axiom with lepidopterists that "the harder the winter, the 

 better the season following it," and if this be so, what shall we 

 have after this, almost the severest winter (nine weeks nearly 

 continuous frost) ever remembered by our oldest entomologists ! 



This year we are unable to record the occurrence of a single 

 species as new to the county. This is not as it should be, as we 

 may be perfectly certain there are large numbers of species still 

 to turn up in the very many little or totally unexplored portions 

 of our large area for investigation. The longfelt want however of a 

 complete list with localities of the lepidoptera of Yorkshire as known 

 at the present time may account for this, as the working members 

 of our Section often complain that they have had no proper basis 

 to work upon, and consequently a great incentive for discovery 



