Page:VCH Cornwall 1.djvu/216

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A HISTORY OF CORNWALL The entomology of Cornwall has not received so much attention as its marine zoology, and several of the sections have been entirely neglected by local observers. The Lepidoptera have naturally attracted many workers, and the late Mr. W. E. Baily of Penzance summed up their observations and his own in the annotated list of 799 county species he published in 1894. This list is excellent so far as it goes, but contains practically no records from the north of the county and almost none from the district between the Bodmin Moors and the Tamar, while the rich collecting district about Liskeard and Looe is scarcely referred to at all. About 600 species of Coleoptera have been recorded from the Penzance and Land's End district, but except for the extreme south-east of the county and the Isles of Scilly the rest of Cornwall, so far as beetles are concerned, has been practically a land unknown. The published lists of county Hymenoptera are almost entirely confined to the Aculeata of the Land's End district and of the north coast, and to a list of 125 Entomophaga from the country around Penzance, but there are occasional references to Ichneumons from other parts of the county. The saw-flies, on the other hand, have been almost wholly neglected. The dragon-flies have received a fair amount of attention, but the only other records of importance for the Neuroptera are some notes by Mr. W. C. Boyd on the occurrence of a few Trichoptera in the west. The county Orthoptera have never received systematic attention, but many valuable data have been preserved. The Diptera are represented by a list of 340 species collected by Messrs. J. C. and C. W. Dale in the west of Cornwall and by a list from Colonel Yerbury of his captures on the Isles of Scilly, together with occasional references in periodical literature. The Hemiptera Heteroptera of West Cornwall were ably dealt with by Mr. Marquand ; a few occurrences have been noted from the south coast, and Mr. C. G. Champion has published a list of his captures at Scilly. The Homoptera, however, have received practically no attention. No attempt appears to have been made so far to identify the Aphides, but Mr. E. D. Marquand has published a list of forty-eight Cornish species of that seldom-studied order, the Aptera. When this article on Cornish Entomology was originally planned, the sections on the Lepidoptera and saw-flies were to have been written by Mr. W. E. Baily, on Entomophaga by the Rev. T. A. Marshall, and on the Coleoptera, Aculeate Hymenoptera, Hemiptera, and Aphides by the present writer, while it was hoped that other local entomologists might be induced to take up the other sections. The death of Mr. Baily and of Mr. Marshall, and the absence of local workers on the less popular sections of entomology, caused the whole of the responsibility for the work to devolve upon the author. Fortunately the Biological Department of the County Technical Schools at Truro is a very large one, and systematic entomology has been taught there for the last six years, so that with the enthusiastic co-operation of a number of his senior pupils the difficulties of the work have been gradually overcome. In addition to the systematic workers on various orders, there has been from year to year a large number of collectors, many of whom have rendered admirable service. The necessity for completing the work somewhat hurriedly has prevented full use being made of all the material collected, and though every species about the identification of which no doubt exists, is given on the following lists, the distribution in the county is not always so com- 164