1916. Greer — Lepidoptera from East Tyrone. 161 
NOTES ON LEPIDOPTERA FROM EAST TYRONE 
IN 1916. 
BY THOMAS GREER. 
The spring of 1916 was unusually cold and backward, 
and the wind most of the time in the north or east ; and 
the early sallows were all spoiled by the frost. Towards 
the middle of April the weather showed some improvement 
and insects began to appear in some numbers at the 
sallows ; Taeniocampa gracilis being very abundant and 
the var. rosea not uncommon, and I secured a single fine 
ab. rufescens, a few also of the silver grey-banded form 
of T. incerta occurred. 
At the end of the month I spent an evening on the 
mountains, where in a small ravine I took a few T. gothica 
var. gothicina at dwarf sallow bloom ; this spot is about 
1,000 feet above sea level, and most of the var. gothicina 
that I have met with have been captured here. Later 
in the year Hydriomena ruberata is often common flying 
about this sallow scrub. 
Hemaris tityus (bombyliformis) appeared early, con- 
sidering the cold weather, about the middle of May, and 
was more abundant than usual ; I counted no less than 
six on the wing at the same time, in a marshy meadow 
where Pedicularis, which was the attraction, grows in 
plenty. 
At the end of the month another local insect was common 
in the same meadow, viz., Melitaea aurinia. I also found 
it flying in numbers in several marshy localities where it 
is usually rare or absent. 
This species is supposed to be universally but locally 
distributed throughout Ireland, but in Ulster it appears 
to be absent from the north-eastern counties of Antrim, 
Down, and Armagh, and is very rare in Co. Derry, only 
two or three specimens having been captured ; the only 
Ulster counties where it is locally abundant are Donegal 
and Fermanagh. 
A visit to a locality where Spindle-tree [Euonymus euro- 
paeus) grows in plenty gave me several Ligidia adustata, 
which were beaten out of the bushes in the daylight ; at the 
same time Lozogramma petraria was abundant among the 
