1871.) 197 
NOTES ON THE LEPIDOPTERA OF BRANDON. 
BY CHARLES @. BARRETT. 
It is a fact so well known to Entomologists that I need hardly 
recall it, that the sand-hills which, in many parts, line our coasts, form 
the almost exclusive habitat of many species of Lepidoptera (as well as of 
other orders), and that these species are seldom, if ever, known to 
wander inland, appearing unable to exist on any different soil. These 
Species are so well known that I need not give a list of them, but pass 
at once to my subject. 
Early last June, I met Mr. de Grey, by appointment, at Brandon, 
in Suffolk, for a raid upon the specialities of that celebrated district. 
The weather being propitious, we had, I think, the most glorious day’s 
collecting I ever remember; but it is not of the rarities we captured 
that I desire now to speak, but of certain coast species whose occur- 
rence in that inland locality is worthy of especial notice. 
In the fields we found Azerastia lotella ; from over-hanging grass 
roots at the railway side we dislodged Gelechia marmorea and distine- 
tella ; Gelechia desertella swarmed in hundreds among grass and stunted 
furze-bushes ; and at flowers of sainfoin in the evening, we took several 
Mamestra albicolon. 
Of these five species, four are well known as otherwise exclusively in- 
habitants of coast sand-hills, and the remaining one, Gefechia distinctella, 
is seldom found away from them, their occurrence all together then at 
this locality appears at first sight sufficiently astonishing. 
Some explanation of it, however, is to be found in the fact that the 
soil consists of almost precisely such a loose sand as is found on the 
coast, a sand so loose, indeed, that a field ploughed on one day is often 
found perfectly smooth and level by the next morning, from the action 
of the wind in the night. 
One of the most accomplished practical geologists in this county 
informs me that there is no doubt that this tract of country—which 
extends some miles —was actually a range of coast sands at a 
recent point of the Post-Glacial period, when the great valley of 
the fens was still submerged. 
It is now, however, perfectly isolated, the nearest portion of sea 
being the Wash, more than twenty miles distant, while the eastern 
coast, with its fringe of sand-hills, is more than forty miles away; the 
intermediate country being in both cases of a totally different character, 
and utterly unsuited for the existence of the species in question. 
Although the Post-Glacial epoch is, I believe, comparatively a 
