HEWETT : YORKSHIRE MACRO-LEPIDOPTERA IN 1897. 159 



season, our county lepidopterists have, generally speaking, 

 worked hard and with a perseverance worthy of better results. 

 That energetic and enthusiastic lepidopterist, Mr. J. W. Boult, 

 of Hull, has had eighty outings in quest of Lepidoptera, viz., 

 four bank-holiday excursions, twenty-seven Saturday afternoons, 

 and forty-nine nights during the season of 1897. Nothing 

 discourages Mr. Boult ; he is always like the immortal Mr. 

 Micawber on the look out for something ' turning up.' His 

 record for 1897 is not a particularly exceptional one, and I 

 merely mention it in detail as an example for younger lepidop- 

 terists to go and do likewise. 



Mr. J. Sumner, of Everingham, is another enthusiastic 

 entomologist who has done remarkably good work during 1897, 

 and we are indebted to him for many exceedingly interesting 

 records. Mr. Sumner, at my suggestion, constructed a moth 

 trap, after the pattern of that described by my friend, Mr. E. F. 

 Studd, F.E.S., of Oxton, Devon, in The Entomologist iox 1893, 

 xxvi., p. 114, and additional notes on it in The Entomologist, 

 xxvii., p. 55. Mr. Studd in a letter dated December 13th, 1896, 

 says : — ' I have quite given up putting any laurel leaves in trap, 

 but still retain drawer and muslin as being a convenient mode 

 for extracting captures.' Mr. Sumner has made several slight 

 improvements, suggested by practical experience. He has had 

 it lit on ' all favourable nights from May until the end of 

 November,' and has rarely found it without a tenant, occasion- 

 ally finding as many as seventy or eighty specimens in the trap 

 at once. The greatest number of different species in the trap 

 on any one night was eight. 



Contrary to what we should expect, Mr. Sumner has found 

 that the greater majority of moths thus captured are in fine 

 condition, and that they do not, as a rule, damage themselves 

 whilst in the trap. It is remarkable, however, how very few 

 female moths seem to be allured to the light. 



I have recently had a moth trap constructed on the same 

 pattern as Mr, Sumner's, and as Messrs, Ash and Porritt also 



