INSECTS The county is an attractive one from the fact that two of our rarest British moths (Lasdocampa ilicifolia, L. and Notodonta bicolor, Hb.) were first captured within its bounds. The first authentic British record of L. ilicifiHa was of a specimen taken by Atkinson on Cannock Chase on 17 May, 1851, although Stephens had previously described this moth as British in 1828, and it is figured by Humphreys and Westwood, but at that time no British specimen was known. Atkinson's insect was exhibited at a meeting of the Entomological Society in London on 2 June, 1851, by Mr. Smith. Since then other specimens have been taken on Cannock Chase by Partridge, Weaver and the Brothers Bonney, and on the 17 May, 1896, an anniversary of the date of the capture of the first insect of this species, Dr. Freer took the last recorded example of this moth from that locality. Larvae have since been met with in the same locality. N. bicolor, Hb., the other rare British insect before mentioned, was taken in the Burnt Woods in Staffordshire on several occasions in 1861 and following years. The only other reputed British locality for this insect is Killarney, in Ire- land. The actual number of species of the various families recorded as having been met with in Staffordshire is as follows : British Liat Staffordshire List Rhopalocera ........ 65 42 Heterocera Sphinges ........ 39 23 Bombyces ....... 1 1 1 69 Noctuae ........ 324 182 Geometrae ....... 280 178 Pyralides ........ 78 34 Pterophori ....... 37 11 Crambi ........ 83 27 Tortrices . ....... 343 144 Tineae ........ 720 238 2,080 948 The principal authorities on the Macro-Lepicloptera of Staffordshire are Garner's Natural History of the County of Stafford, published in 1840 ; Sir O. Mosley's Natural History of Tutbury, published in 1863, which contains a list of the Lepidoptera of the Burton district by the well-known entomologist, Mr. Edwin Brown ; Contributions to the Fauna and Flora of Repton, by Mr. W. Garneys and others (ed. 2, 1881) ; the Annual Reports of the North Staf- fordshire Field Club (1866 to 1906) ; a paper on 'the Lepidoptera of Burton-on-Trent and neighbourhood,' which first appeared in the Entomologist for 1885, and was afterwards reprinted with additions in the Transactions of the Burton-on-Trent Natural History Society for 1889 ; besides various notes and papers which have appeared in the Entomologist, the Midland Naturalist, and other Natural History magazines and works on Entomology. In the following list the records of Macro-Lepidoptera are taken from the reports of the North Staffordshire Field Club unless otherwise stated. Much less attention has been given to the Micro-Lepidoptera. Mr. Brown's list com- prised some 280 species of Tortrices and Tineae ; Mr. C. G. Barrett collected sixty species, chiefly at Cannock, in June 1886 (Report N.S.F.C. 1887, p. 13), and in 1880 the Rev. T. W. Daltry contributed his first notes on the subject to the same publication. In 1891 (Report, p. 17) seventy-nine species had been recorded by him, and subsequently a few more have been added. In 1892 Messrs. J. T. Harris and P. B. Mason published a list of the Crambi, Tortrices, and Tineae of the Burton district (Transactions Burton-on-Trent Natural History Society, ii, p. l), while in the Report of the North Staffordshire Field Club for 1899, p. 60, Mr. E. D. Bostock recorded 17 species, many of which were new to the county list. The present list also contains a number of records by Messrs. W. G. Blatch and R. C. Bradley, for which I am indebted to Mr. C. J. Wainwright, and Dr. R. Freer has contributed a list of 131 species taken by himself in the Rugeley district and the adjoining part of Cannock Chase. E. B = E. Brown. C. G. B. - C. G. Barrett. T. W. D = Rev. T. W. Daltry. B. L. = Burton Society, List of Macro-Lepidoptera (1885-9). B. S. = J. T. Harris and Dr. Mason (1892). E. D. B. = E. D. Bostock. C. J. W. = C. J. Wainwright. R. C. B. = R. C. Bradley. W. G. B. = W. G. Blatch. R. F. = Dr. R. Freer. i 97 '3
