HESPERIA LINEOLA, OCHS.
191
collector. What is there labelled "incanata" is virgulana, and
"marginepunctata" is straminata. In Dr. Knaggs' "Cabinet List"
the species we are considering is called "immutata," but Linne's
immutata, a British species, is very distinct.
HESPERIA LINEOLA, OCHS., A BUTTERFLY
NEW TO ESSEX AND TO BRITAIN.
THIS species, which is so closely allied to the "Common Skipper Butterfly"
(Hesperia thaumas), that it has hitherto escaped recognition, has been found
during the past season in abundance in Essex. The merit of the first discovery
belongs to Mr. F. W. Hawes, who in the "Entomologist" for January (vol. xxiii.,
pp. 3, 4), gives some interesting details as to the points of difference between the
two species. Mr. South has well summed up the differential characters as
follows, numbers 1 and 3 referring to both sexes, 2 to the males only :—
According to Dr. F. Buchanan White (Trans. Linn. Soc, ii. ser., Zoology,
vol. i., pl. lvi., figs. 26 and 27), there are also structural differences between the
two species in the genital armature of the males.
Mr. Hawe's specimens (3) were taken in July, 1888, "in one of the eastern
counties," and had remained in his cabinet simply as "varieties" of H. thaumas.
Mr. A. J. Spiller in a paper "On the Occurrence of Hesperia lineola in Essex"
(Entom. xxiii., pp. 56, 57, February, 1890), states that in 1885-8 he frequently
met with the species, of course not then recognising it as really distinct from the
"Common Skipper." Then Mr. F. G. Whittle (Entom., ibid., p. 57), say; that
H. lineola "occurs in abundance, the first week in July, on the marshes near
Benfleet and Shoeburyness." Mr. J. T. Carrington captured the butterfly in Essex
in 1889 (Ibid., pp. 4 and 72). In July the members of the South London
Entomological took considerable numbers at Leigh, and it is stated that from 500
to 600 specimens have been taken in Essex by half-a-dozen collectors. Mr.
Bouttell (Entom. xxiii., p. 296) took it at Southend in 1882, and specimens are
recorded from Suffolk and Sussex. Our colleague, Mr. Charles Oldham, writes
that "on August 19th (rather late in the season, you will say), I turned up H.
lineola in Huntingdonshire."
At a meeting of the South London Entomological Society on August 14th,
Mr. Tugwell said that he had made two excursions to Leigh for Hesperia lineola.
His first captures were all lineola, and then working on to Hadleigh, he boxed all
the Hesperia, thinking them to be lineola, but on reaching home he found 75 per cent.