346 



ISLAND LIFE 



PART II 



occurrence of some of the supposed peculiar species on the 

 continent. The list has now been revised by the Rev. 

 Canon Fowler, author of the best modern work on the 

 British Coleoptera, who has kindly furnished some valuable 

 notes. 



Lcpidoptem. 



Among the Lepidoptera the probability of there being 

 peculiar British forms is still greater, owing to the fact 

 that the larvae of many of them feed during winter. 

 This is the case with some of our peculiar species of 

 Tineina, a habit which they are able to adopt in our mild 

 insular climate, but which is usually impossible when 

 exposed to the severer continental winter. A curious 

 example of the effect this habit may have on distribution 

 is afforded by one of our commonest British species, 

 ElacMsta rufocinerea, the larva of which mines in the leaves 

 of Holms mollis and other grasses from December to 

 March. This species, though common everywhere with 

 us, extending to Scotland and Ireland, is quite unknown in 

 similar latitudes on the continent, but appears again in 

 Italy, the South of France, and Dalmatia, where the mild 

 winters enable it to live in its accustomed manner. 



Such cases as this afford an excellent illustration of those 

 changes of distribution, dependent probably on recent 

 changes of climate, which may have led to the restriction 

 of certain species to our islands. For should any change 

 of climate lead to the extinction of the species in South 

 Europe, where it is far less abundant than with us, we 

 should have a common and wide-spread species entirely 

 restricted to our islands. Other species feed in the larva 

 state on our common gorse, a plant found only in limited 

 portions of Western and Southern Europe ; and the 

 presence of this plant in a mild and insular climate such 

 as ours may well be supposed to have led to the pre- 

 servation of some of the numerous species which are or 

 have been dependent on it. 



In the first edition of this work the list of supposed 

 peculiar British species was revised by the late Mr. H. T. 

 Stainton, and that in the second edition was corrected by 



