INSECTS CuRCULiONiDiE {continued) Curculionid^ {continued) near Manchester ; and T. laricis, F., Pityogenes bidentatus, Herbst. Chat from Crosby. All however may easily Moss have been introduced in fir logs Trypodendron domesticum, L. Agecroft, grown elsewhere than in Lancashire Manchester LEPIDOPTERA Butterflies and Moths The order Lepidoptera is undoubtedly better known and more widely studied than any other order of the Insecta. This has been especially the case in Lancashire, and our Lancashire records consequently amount to a much larger proportion of the total of known British species than do those of any other order. Nearly all the Lancashire entomolo- gists have been firstly lepidopterists, and their united efforts have left a very large mass of accumulated information in regard to the local distri- bution of the order, so that it seems probable that very few species occur which have not been put on record by some of them. Among those to whom we are more especially indebted for our knowledge of the Lancashire Lepidoptera may be mentioned N. Greening of Warrington, Chappell of Manchester, Threlfall and Hodgkinson of Preston, Gregson and the Brothers Cooke of Liverpool, all of whom, with the exception of Mr. Threlfall, are now dead. Present students of the order are to be found in all the larger towns, and are indeed too numerous to mention individually. Some excellent private collections of British Lepidoptera exist in the county, that of Mr. S. J. Capper of Huyton near Liverpool being one of the most complete in the country. In all the public museums also the Lepidoptera are without exception the largest and most complete of the entomological collections. The first list of Lancashire Lepidoptera, as of Coleoptera, was com- piled by C. S. Gregson of Liverpool, and published by the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire {Trans. 1855-85). About the same time, 1856, Isaac Byerley, F.L.S., published his Fauna of Liverpool. A fairly full list of the Lepidoptera of the district is given in this work, but the records relate more to the Wirral peninsula than to Lancashire, and there are none outside the immediate vicinity of Liverpool. The preface acknowledges the assistance rendered by Messrs. Brockholes, Warrington, Diggles and Almond (mostly Cheshire collectors) in the compilation of the Lepidoptera section of the Fauna. After an interval of several years these lists were followed by the publication by Dr. Ellis of Liverpool of his very complete Lepidopterous Fauna of Lancashire and Cheshire, first published in the pages of the Naturalist, and afterwards in book form in 1890. This list incorporates the observations and records of all the local lepidopterists, and from it principally is drawn the substance of the somewhat condensed list which follows, few additions having been made since its publication. The writer however has pleasure in acknowledging the assistance 127
