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158 



YORKSHIRE MACRO-LEPIDOPTERA 

 IN T897: 



Being the Report of the Entomological Section of the Yorkshire Naturalists' 

 Union for iSgj. 



WILLIAM HEWETT, Hon. Secretary. 



The season 1897 has come and gone, and entomologically 

 speaking it has been one of the worst on record, but, fortunately, 

 not the worst. 



The experience of Messrs. Ash, Booth, Beanland, Brady, 

 Brooks, Broadley, Boult, Butterfield, Corbett, Harrison, Young, 

 and myself, stated in these pages, fully confirms this statement, 

 as also does the evidence of all the Yorkshire lepidopterists, and 

 that of most of the British lepidopterists. The reason for this 

 is, in my opinion, principally due to the long-continued drought, 

 but there are of course other causes some of which will occur 

 to my readers. The frost, rain, and high winds of late March 

 and early April were responsible for the almost total failure of 

 the sallow ' harvest.' I never in my twenty-one years' experi- 

 ence knew the 'palms' to be in better condition for favourable 

 results than they were about the end of March, and on the only 

 favourable night, viz., March 23rd, moths, especially Tceniocampa 

 populeti which at that early date was well out, swarmed, but first 

 the rain, then the frost, and lastly the high winds soon spoilt the 

 usually attractive blossoms, so that one of the most exciting and 

 productive means of capturing moths had to be abandoned. 

 With a few exceptions, larvae have been exceedingly scarce all 

 the season, especially autumn larvae ; sugar in a few districts 

 from loth June to loth July was more than usually productive, 

 after that date an almost universal failure, even the ubiquitous 

 and generally too conspicuous Xylophasia polyodon and Tri- 

 pficena pronuba being rare visitors. Notwithstanding the bad 



Trans. Y.N.U., 1900 (pub. Dec. 1900). Series D, Vol. 5. 



