CHAP. XVI THE BRITISH ISLES 346^^ 



Messrs. Warren and Barrett and Lord Walsingham, and 

 the two former gentlemen have kindly given me further 

 corrections for the present issue. But I am now especially 

 indebted to Mr. J. W. Tutt, editor of the Entomologist's 

 Record and author of a standard work on the Noctuidae. 

 He has furnished me with a list of no less than four 

 hundred species, varieties, and aberrations of British 

 Lepidoptera, which are, so far as known, peculiar to our 

 islands. The latter term applies to more than half the 

 forms catSlogued, and indicates a slight sport, abnor- 

 mality, or variation, that occurs sporadically, but does not 

 form a local race or established variety. I have therefore 

 omitted all these aberrations from the following list of the 

 Species and Varieties of endemic British Lepidoptera, and 

 I do so with the less regret as Mr. Tutt proposes to give 

 the entire catalogue in his Record. 



Mr. McLachlan has kindly furnished me with some 

 valuable information on certain species of Trichoptera or 

 Caddis-flies which seem to be peculiar to our islands ; and 

 this completes the list of orders which have been studied 

 with sufficient care to afford materials for such a com- 

 parison. We will now give the list of peculiar British 

 Insects, beginning with the Lepidoptera, and adding such 

 notes as have been supplied by the gentlemen already 

 referred to. 



List of the Species or Varieties of Lepidoptera which, so far as at present 

 Jcnoivn, are confined to the British Islands. 



DlURNI. 



1. Chrysophanus dispar, Haw. Formerly locally abundant in the 



Fens of Cambridgeshire and Huntingdonshire, but now extinct. 

 It is a large, brightly coloured race of a widely distributed species 

 known as C. rutilus on the Continent. The specimens from 

 Bordeaux and the Pontine marshes closely approach the British 

 form. But on the whole the British race seems to be distinct and 

 characteristic. 



2. Polyommatus astrarche, var. Artaxerxes, Fab. A local race almost 



entirely confined to Scotland. 



3. Melitsea aurinia, var. pr^clara, Kane. Chiefly confined to Ireland. 



4. M. aurinia, var. scotica, Tutt. Confined to Scotland. 



5. Coenonympha typhon, var. scotica. Stand. Scotland and Ireland. 



Arctiides. 



6. Lithosia complana, var. sericea, Gregson (1861). Lancashire, 



7. Si)ilosoma menthastri, var. scotica, White. Scotland. 



