INSECTS 



If Lancashire maintains a smaller part of the total number of British 

 insects than do several English counties of lesser area, we may attribute 

 such a paucity more to its geographical position in the north-west than 

 to natural condition of surface or environment, for these indeed in Lanca- 

 shire are most varied. We have mountains, moorlands, extensive mosses 

 and wide belts of littoral sand dunes — all of which suit and protect 

 their exclusive fauna — the only distinct natural feature that is wanting 

 being extensive and ancient forest land. There are however many 

 detached woods, both of recent origin and of the earlier more primi- 

 tive growths of birch and fir on the mosses or bogs of the southern 

 part of the county. In fact, but few English counties excel Lancashire 

 in diversity of natural conditions, and although in few counties have such 

 conditions been more altered and indeed obliterated than they have in 

 south-west Lancashire, still large tracts in the north and north-east 

 remain untouched by the hand of man, and are populated by a fauna pro- 

 bably unaltered since it was first established there. 



Before proceeding in detail to an enumeration of the insects which 

 have so far been recorded from Lancashire, a few words may not be 

 out of place on the local students of the order and the special locali- 

 ties whence most of our information of the occurrence of its members 

 is derived. 



LANCASHIRE ENTOMOLOGISTS 



No account of the Insecta of Lancashire would be complete without 

 some reference to the band of workers who have done so much in the 

 past to explore the county entomologically, and to whose efforts is due to 

 a great extent our knowledge of its fauna. 



Most of these men have now passed away — the school of Lancashire 

 working men entomologists especially seems to have left no descendants. 

 For in the early years of the last century this county was distinguished 

 by a group of self-taught naturalists, who, born for the most part in 

 quite humble circumstances, without education, and denied all the 

 assistances to self-education now so abundant in our large towns, living 

 obscure and toilsome lives, were yet inspired by an innate and ineradicable 

 love of nature. 



These men belonged principally to the large manufacturing towns 

 of the south of the county, and in days before factory acts and cheap rail- 

 way excursions their scant leisure was employed in assiduous collecting 

 and expeditions to distant parts of the county on foot, almost incredible 

 to the modern collector. 



lOI 



