236 
ST. ALBANS AND ITS NEIGHBOURHOOD. 
fish-pond at Kitchener’s Meads are marked with an asterisk:— 
*Phryganea grandis, * Glyphotselius pellucidus, ^Lymnophilus 
lunatus, L. extricatus, L. hirsutus, Anabolia nervosa , Stenophylax 
concentricus, # Notidobia ciliaris, *Molanna angustata, and 
Mystacides longicornis. 
Very little is known about the occurrence in the vicinity of 
St. Albans of species comprised in the smaller Families of the 
old Linnean Order Neuroptera, local students of entomology 
not having given attention to these insects. 
Hymenoptera.— The collections in the County Museum 
contain a fair number of local Aculeata and saw-flies, but the 
more obscure entomophagous Families have not been locally 
investigated. 
Lepidoptera.— The butterflies and moths are the only insects 
which have been carefully studied so far as their distribution 
within the area now being dealt with is concerned. For the first 
locally published notes on the subject we are indebted to the 
Kev. C. M. Perkins, a former master of the St. Albans 
Grammar School, who, in 1878, contributed a paper on “ British 
Butterflies ” to the Watford (now the Hertfordshire) Natural 
History Society (‘Trans. Watford N. IT. Soc.,’ Yol. II, p. 63). 
In the course of his remarks Mr. Perkins recorded the occurrence 
of several species of Bliopalocera at St. Albans, but the paper 
is a general one, and does not profess to give a complete list 
of our local butterflies. In 1884 the investigation of the 
Lepidoptera of the neighbourhood was greatly stimulated by 
the publication by Mr. A. F. G-riffith of a systematized list of 
species observed in the Sandridge district, the locality concerned 
being within the five-mile radius of St. Albans, and 514 species 
were therein enumerated (‘ Trans. Herts N. H. Soc.,’ Yol. Ill, 
p. 58). In a supplementary paper read in 1890, dealing chiefly 
with the Tineina, Mr. Griffith brought up the number of the 
species in his Sandridge list to 832 (ibid., Yol. YI, p. 97). 
Since that time other observers have been at work in the 
neighbourhood, and of late years the writer has kept, as recorder 
of the Insecta for the Natural History Society, a register of 
all species taken in the county. In the subjoined list are set 
out the number of species of the different Families which have 
been observed up to the present time within five miles of 
St. Albans (931) compared with the numbers recorded for the 
whole county (1182) :— 
Herts . St . Albans . Herts . St . Albans . 
Bliopalocera 50 . 34 G-eometrse .... 193 . 155 
Sphinges . 26 . 16 Pyralidse and Crambi 100 . 74 
Bombyces . 78 . 62 Tortrices.176 . 149 
Noctuse . . 200 . 161 Tinese. 359 . 280 
In comparing these figures it should be remembered that the 
county list contains many records, made in the neighbourhood 
of Hertford by J. F. Stephens, the veteran entomologist, in the 
