142 



THE YOUNG NATURALIST. 



the student and the collector. We are told in the preface that Dorsetshire 

 is but a small county compared with others, having an area of only 632,025 

 acres, or 988 square miles. It has, however, an exceedingly rich Lepidop- 

 terous fauna, and out of 2095 supposed British species, Mr. Dale enumerates 

 no less than 1802 as having occurred within the county, which is only 39 

 less than Mr. Porritt recorded for Yorkshire, the largest of the English 

 counties, and perhaps one with the greatest variety of surface character. But 

 Dorsetshire has some grand localties. .To quote the introduction — 



" Containing as it does two much noted localties as Lulworth and the Isle of Port- 

 land, and possessing a considerable portion of the extensive heath district, in which a 

 greater part of the New Forest may not improperly be included, it can hardly fail to be 

 rich in variety of insect life." 



But the district is not only really rich in its Lepidopterous treasures, it has 

 been unusually well worked for at least the whole of the present century, and 

 the records have been preserved, giving the author of this Catalogue unexcep- 

 tional facilities. His father, the late J. C. Dale, whose earliest entomological 

 recollections dated back to the capture of a Queen of Spain {Argynnis Lath- 

 onia) in the year 1800, and whose last entomological act was an entry in his 

 Diary, on the day of his death, February 6th, 1872, left such a record behind 

 him as perhaps no one ever will again ; an entomological journal commenced 

 in the year 1808, and kept continuously to the day of his death just mentioned, 

 an uninterrupted period of 64 years. Nor was he a recorder only. His 

 separate published writings are few in number, but our readers have more 

 than once been indebted to his accuracy and care for valued information on 

 current topics, supplied from this Journal by the author of the volume we 

 are now considering. Every page of this catalogue teems with evidence of 

 his father's work. Important dates from the beginning of the century, and 

 records of species new to Britain or new to science are found in abundance. 

 Nor has Dorsetshire been without other able workers, of whom the Rev. O. P. 

 Cambridge, of Bloxworth, will be best known to our readers. Prior to the 

 publication of the present work, various lists of Lepidoptera occurring on Parley 

 Heath, at the Isle of Purbeck, at the Isle of Portland, at Sherborne, &c. &c, 

 had been published. Of all these Mr. Dale has fully availed himself, and 

 has made his list one of the most full and complete ever published. 



Mr. Porritt, in his Yorkshire list gave separate localities for every species 

 except those of universal distribution. Mr. Dale does the same, but classifies 

 his localities by the various riversheds, five in number, and the Isle of Port- 

 land and Isle of Purbeck, using the first seven letters of the alphabet to 

 distinguish them. This, in our opinion, is a decided improvement, but we 

 would have been glad to see a small map of the county, with the various 



