AN ENTOMOLOGICAL EXPEDITION 

 TO NORTH WALES AND THE ISLE OF MAN. 



GEORGE T. PORRITT, F.L.S., F.E.S., 



Hudders/ield ; Author of the ''List of Yorkshire Lepidopiera.' 



In August last, in company with Mr. G. W. K. Crosland, of this 

 town, I made an entomological excursion to North Wales, making 

 Penmaenmawr head-quarters. We arrived there on the evening of 

 August 4th, and most of our collecting was done in the immediate 

 vicinity of that charming little place, and on the sandhills lying 

 between it and Conway and Llandudno. On several of the earlier 

 evenings we climbed up the Moel Leys Mountain, on the possibility 

 of finding one or two late specimens of Agrotis ashworthii still on 

 the wing, but, as we feared, it was evidently over, for no trace of it 

 was to be found, though some years previously, in July, I had 

 discovered it was a not uncommon species there. And we were, of 

 course, quite too late for the local Acidalia co?itiguaria, which occurs 

 on the same mountain, as well as probably on all the rocks from 

 Conway to Llanfairfechan. On the Moel Leys, but not high up, we 

 were glad to find Stilbia a7ioviala was fairly common, and in fine 

 condition, evidently just getting well out ; and we were also very 

 pleased to find that Cidaria picata still occurred in its old habitat 

 near Conway. The Y>XQt\.y Larentia olivata occurred not uncommonly 

 on rocks, whilst the most abundant Noctua was the lively Tryphcena 

 janihina. This species seemed to occur everywhere ; on beating a 

 holly-bush six or eight specimens would sometimes fly out ; and in 

 gardens and lanes it appeared to be quite as abundant as its bigger 

 narrow-bordered brother T. pronuba is in Yorkshire. 



We collected such species of the orders Lepidoptera, Neuroptera 

 (omitting Psocidcc and Ephemeridce), Trichoptera, and Orthoptera as 

 came in our way, but the district did not appear rich in species, as 

 the appended lists will show. Only in the Lepidoptera, however, had 

 we had much previous experience, or there is little doubt the list 

 would have been largely augmented, the character of the ground 

 being evidently very favourable for the other orders. 



For a change in the collecting, on the 15th we crossed over to 

 the Isle of Man, returning to Penmaenmawr on the 20th. On the 

 island we hoped to have got Folia 7iigrocincta^ but were disap- 

 pointed; and as I had also searched for the larvae two months earlier, 

 in June, on the ground where some years ago Mr. Roxburgh, of 

 Liverpool, and I found nearly forty larvae one evening, we began to 



April 1888. 



