80 
II. 
The Macro-Lepidoptera of the District around Maldon, 
r 
Essex. 
By Gilbert H. Kaynor, M.A., 
Vice-President of the Cambridge Entomological Society. 
[Read May 20th, 1882.] 
The character of the country round Maldon is of a very 
varied description, and consequently affords a good hunting- 
ground to the student of Natural History. To the east lies 
the Blackwater, the estuary of which is bounded by low- 
lying alluvial marshes, at the present time mostly under 
-grass, which is grazed by Bullocks, Sheep, and Horses. Here 
is an absence of all trees, except a few pollard willows along 
the banks of the ditches bounding the uplands from the 
marshes—a weary expanse of desolate lands, which tempts 
us, in the words of the poet, 
“ To watch the crisping ripples on the beach, 
And tender curving lines of creamy spray ; 
To lend our hearts and spirits wholly 
To the influence of mild-minded melancholy.” 
The marshes are protected from the tide by an artificial 
embankment of soil, commonly called a sea-wall. The vege¬ 
tation of the Salterns, the land outside the wall over which 
the tide flows every twelve hours, is quite peculiar; yet is it 
somewhat destitute of insect-life, except in autumn, when 
the gay masses of Aster trifolium throw a golden glory over 
all the land. These and the flowers of other plants indigenous 
to the marshes attract several common Noctus in considerable 
numbers ; but collecting is far from easy, owing to the net¬ 
work of salt-water rills with which the marshes are intersected. 
Several Micro-Lepidoptera are attached to these Saltern 
plants, more especially to Plantayo maritima, and various 
species of Staticc and Aster. This district, I regret to say, 1 
