15 
without a break until August 5th. .S'. menthastri was also very late, 
the last being taken on July 26th. In my early days of collecting, in 
the sixties, these two species were generally completely over by the 
early part of June in the London district, but I remember sometimes 
seeing them after June 20th at Ipswich, which often surprised me, as 
I used to consider them to be quite over by then on the west side of 
London. Lycaena cwjon was almost a month late, as I took one at 
Snodland on August 15th, and another at Ashdown Forest on 
August 19th. 
In support of my opinion that the season has been a remarkably 
poor one, I find that, on going through the journals, very few notices 
of unusual captures are to be found. Whether it is that the “mere 
collector ” is getting more scarce or not, I cannot say, but it is certain 
that I never knew a time when less has been recorded in this way. 
There is a record of Vanessa antiopa in March, in Surrey, and perhaps 
under more favourable climatic conditions we might have looked for 
an autumnal emergence, but there is nothing to say that this “ grand 
surprise” has been seen again. There is another notice of Aryynnis 
lathonia having been taken in June at Folkestone. This seems an 
unusual date for the insect to appear in Britain, as nearly all our 
records are in September, but, after all, it seems probable that the 
September specimens are the offspring of some immigrant arriving 
here in the early summer. A very interesting record is that of Synia 
musculosct in Wiltshire, last August. Judging from the inland locality, 
this would appear to be no immigrant, but to be one of the few insects 
that may be still called rare, although probably indigenous. 
Mr. J. P. Barrett notes that he took hispidaria in Richmond Park, 
in the same spot where he took it forty years ago. This strikes a chord 
of some interest to the field naturalist, as to the length of time a local 
species remains in precisely the same place. With hispid aria the 
necessity of remaining in one place is doubtless due to the females 
being apterous, and the operation of shifting quarters being in 
consequence almost impossible. But there are other insects which are 
extremely local, where there appears to be no obvious reason why they 
should occur year after year in the same spot. Many of the older 
collectors have ample evidence of species that were once abundant 
locally, having departed and gone ; but I should think there are few of 
us Who are able to say that a certain local species is taken in the same 
place that it was taken in some 40 or 50 years ago, and in the same 
abundance. In many cases where the insects have gone, the reason is 
plain, as the contaminating influence of smoke, owing to the increase 
in the population of neighbouring towns, is enough to account for it. 
My own collecting during the past season has been greatly 
curtailed owing to business pressure, and the few times I had the 
opportunity of sugaring -were unproductive in the extreme. Larva 
beating in Epping Forest in the late autumn was not quite so bad, 
although not quite up to an average season; and in Sussex, autumn 
larvte were also scarce, and it required a lot of hard beating to produce 
only very small results. The best larva falling to my lot was that of 
Acronycta alni. 
It now only remains for me ro thank those gentlemen who 
xx. 
