﻿50 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 



researches, especially among the smaller Staphylinids, during 

 the 'sixties.^ 



Early in the 'seventies we find Dr Buchanan White in- 

 augurating an " Insecta Scotica," showing the distribution of 

 each species according to natural areas, of which one is 

 " Forth." The section dealing with the Lepidoptera (Macros 

 only), edited by himself, was begun in 1872 in the first 

 volume of the Scottish Naturalist — where the thirteen areas 

 are defined and shown on a map — and concluded in 1879. 

 The Coleoptera, by Dr Sharp, came out in the same magazine 

 during the period 1872-1881 ; and the Trichoptera, by J. J. 

 King and K. J. Morton, during 1884-1885. In these lists 

 there are recorded from " Forth," 327 Macro-Lepidoptera, 

 1055 Coleoptera, and 53 Trichoptera. In this incomplete 

 state the " Insecta Scotica " unfortunately remains to this day. 

 During its progress, some additions to the Coleoptera were 

 reported by Dr W. A. Forbes''^ and Sir Archibald Buchan- 

 Hepburn.^ Two visits to Aberlady by Mr Gr. H. Verrall, in 

 1870 and 1873, resulted in a further contribution to the 

 scanty knowledge of Forth Diptera.^ 



A lull of a few years, then a revival of activity in which 

 the chief workers have been Professor Hudson Beare (Cole- 

 optera), Mr A. E. J. Carter (Diptera and Hymenoptera), Mr 

 P. H. Grimshaw (Diptera), and myself, brings us to the 

 present time. My own interest in Entomology (as also in 

 Ornithology) began close on fifty years ago, when as a boy 

 I lived in East Lothian, and came under the spell of Dr 

 Charles Nelson of Pitcox,^ a keen naturalist and kind- 

 hearted man, whose memory I still cherish. For a long 

 time my attention was practically confined to the Lepidoptera, 

 then it embraced the Coleoptera, and latterly it has extended 

 step by step to all the orders. The results of this latest wave 



^ Cf. j)apers by Rye and Sharp about this time in Ent. Annual, Ent. Mo 

 Mag., and Trans. Ent. Soc. Lond.; also note b}^ \Y. R, M'Nab in our Pro- 

 ceedings, iii. p. 404, and Sharp's Thesis in Edinburgh University Library. 



2 Scot. Nat., iii. p. 316. ^ Ih., iv. p. 248, and Proc. Berw. Nat. Club, 

 viii. pp. 132 and 314. In the Entomologist for 1888, A. Beaumont gives a 

 number of records of Water-beetles from Culros", etc, Cf. also Notes by 

 R. Logan in Ent. Mo. Mag. for 1887. 



Ent. Mo. Mag., vols, viii., xii. ; and Scot. Nat., ii. p. 199. • 



^ Dr Nelson's collection of British Lepidoptera is preserved in the Royal 

 Scottish Museum. Unfortunately the specimens are without localities. 



