A HISTORY OF WARWICKSHIRE water, its bogs, woods and common land it has always been an attractive spot for the naturalist, and being within easy reach of Birmingham has been well worked and will be found frequently quoted in the lists which follow. There are fine parks full of large trees, etc., at Stone- leigh, Warwick, Packington, etc., and the woods are scattered all over the county, most of the localities quoted in the lists Knowle, Wolford, Brandon, Atherstone, etc. being in the neighbourhood of some of the larger ones, though none are very large. The presence of Birmingham with its smoke and dirt and crowds of inhabitants pouring forth into the country on every holiday has doubtless had its effects on the flora and fauna of the north-western parts ; on the one hand helping to re- duce the number of species and on the other possibly modifying them, as the presence of dark forms of some species such as Miana strigilis, Cl., Hybernia marginaria, Bkh., Gradlaria syringe/fa, F., etc., seems to prove. Possibly this may be the explanation of the occurrence of some species in the south which do not occur in the north of the county. In the south-west is a portion of the county which is separated from the remainder by a narrow strip of Worcestershire. In this 'island' is situated Whitchurch, which is often quoted in the lists, and a portion of the parish is, I believe, in each county, so that the records from there are a little mixed. In some cases I have mentioned when specimens were taken in the Worcestershire strip ; geographically however, though not politically, this strip of Worcestershire might well be included in Warwickshire, and there could be no harm in including its fauna in that of our county. In and around Birmingham too the border lines are rather irregular, and I have thought it neither necessary nor desir- able to be too strict about including captures from doubtful spots. For instance, a long tongue of Worcestershire runs into Warwickshire just south of Birmingham. Situated in this strip are Yardley, Acocks Green, Moseley, etc., all of which will be found quoted in the lists; but as a walk of a quarter of a mile or little more would take one from either of these places into Warwickshire, and as moreover Warwickshire almost surrounds them, specimens recorded are as likely to have been taken in one county as in the other and are little likely to be restricted to one of them only. There is not much to be written historically about the progress of entomology in Warwickshire. Few entomologists even of slight dis- tinction have ever worked or lived in the county, and but little has ever been published on its insects. It was in this county that Weaver col- lected and was said to have taken Argynnis dia, L., and other wonderful species in the early half of last century ; and there must have been other collectors in those early days as there are traditions of their captures of Lycoena semiargus, Rott., near Birmingham, etc., but I have been unable to learn anything about them or their work. It is not until we reach the 'sixties,' when Dr. R. C. R. Jordan, Messrs. W. G. Blatch and F. Enock began to collect, that anything definite is known, and not much then. Dr. Jordan was well known as a student of the 70
