Page:VCH Hertfordshire 1.djvu/152

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A HISTORY OF HERTFORDSHIRE corded for Hertfordshire by Mr. Griffith only : Hemaris bombyliformis, Pygcera curtula, Heliotbis armigera, Leucopbtbalmia pendularia, Euchceca obliterata> T'epbroclystis plumbeolata^ T. virgaureata, Calocalpe undulata, and Cataclysme virgata. Especial mention must be made of Mr. Griffith's careful study of the ' pug ' moths and their life history, he having recorded the occurrence of no less than 22 species. The next published lists were those of Mr. John Hartley Durrant, F.E.S., of species observed in the neighbourhood of Hitchin and Kneb- worth. 1 He recorded 419 species, of which 106 were not included in Mr. Griffith's list, thus bringing the total for the county up to 938. The insects named in Mr. Durrani's Hitchin list were captured at Hitch Wood, Ickleford, Norton, Offley, Pegsdon, Ippolyts and Tingley Wood, and roughly speaking all his collecting was done on the Chalk or on the Boulder Clay or Drift overlying it. The species recorded by Mr. Durrant alone include Procris geryon, Callimorpba dominula, and Heliotbis peltigera. Mr. Durrant also made a further valuable contri- bution to local entomological literature in a paper 2 read at Watford in 1888, which contained a large number of records gathered from various sources of species observed in the county. The majority of the records are collected from Stephens' Illustrations of British Entomology (Haustel- /ata), vols. i. to iv., ranging in date from 1828 to 1834, and I have made use of Mr. Durrani's paper in compiling my present list. In the same year Mr. R. W. Bowyer, one of the masters at Hailey- bury School, published a list 3 of the Macro-Lepidoptera which had been caught in that neighbourhood. This contained the names of 30 butter- flies and 315 moths, and included some rare insects, such as Lyccena arion and Catocala fraxini. About the same time the Haileybury Natural Science Society issued a useful little work entitled Tbe Flora and Fauna of Haileybury, part i. of which includes the Lepidoptera. This I have consulted in addition to Mr. Bowyer's catalogue and some additional notes and records supplied by Mr. C. H. Stockley, and it is referred to hereafter as the ' Haileybury School List.' The Macro-Lepidoptera of south-west Herts have been very carefully investigated by the Watford entomologists, good work having been done in this direction by Mr. Arthur Cottam of Elderscroft, Mr. J. E. K. Cutts (formerly of Silverdell, Nascot Wood), Mr. S. H. Spencer, Mr. Noel Heaton, Mr. Wigg, and Mr. A. Stoyel. At Bushey Heath Mr. Philip J. Barraud has succeeded by means of a light trap in securing a number of rarities, among which may be mentioned Ortbosia suspecta and Plusia moneta ; and at Oxhey, which, like the last locality, is on the Middlesex border, Mr. H. Rowland-Brown, M.A., F.E.S., of Harrow Weald, has captured a number of interesting species. The extensive tracts of woodland with which Hertfordshire abounds have proved fruitful hunting-grounds, prominent among them being Bricket Wood, about midway between St. Albans and Watford, and well known to the collectors resident in those two towns. Besides the J Trans. Herts Nat, Hist. Sac., vol. iii. p. 261. * Ibid. vol. v. p. 63. 3 Ibid. vol. v. p. 23. 112