153
THE LEPIDOPTERA OF LEYTON AND NEIGH-
BOURHOOD; A CONTRIBUTION TO THE
COUNTY FAUNA.
By Prof. R. MELDOLA, F.R.S., &c., Vice-President Entomological Society.
THE publication of the first instalment of Mr. Fitch's paper (ante,
pp. 74-108) has induced me to place upon record my own
experience as a collector in the above district. Any interest which
these records may possess is perhaps more of a personal than of a
scientific character, since they relate, for the most part, to a period
of about twenty years ago, when, as a novice, I first took up the
fascinating pursuit of butterfly and moth collecting with all the
enthusiasm of youth. The district referred to in these notes was
comprised by the garden attached to No. 8, Park Place, Leyton,
with the neighbouring parts of Epping Forest, more especially the
glades about "Rushey Plain" and "Gilbert's Slade," although
excursions were also frequently made to the more remote parts of
the Forest. Commencing in the autumn of the hot and dry season
of 1868, the various methods of collecting by netting on the wing,
sugaring, searching flowers at night, attracting by light, breeding
from larvae, &c., were carried on without intermission on every
favourable day and evening, till we left the locality in 1870. After
this, collecting was still carried on in the district, but not so con-
tinuously. Fairly complete notes of captures from 1869 to 1874
have been kept, and most of the specimens are still in my collection
in as good a state of preservation as when taken off the setting-
boards twenty years ago. From these notes and specimens the
present list has been drawn up. As the locality at Leyton where
these captures were made is now being rapidly covered with build-
ings, it has appeared to me of sufficient interest to publish the present
list, both as a contribution to the County fauna and as a record of
the Lepidopterous population of a suburb which was at the time rural,
but which is now being gradually absorbed into the metropolis.
Fortunately from the naturalists' point of view, however, Leyton still
is, and always must be, cut off from London to the north by the Lea
valley and the low-lying marsh and meadow lands bordering that
river.
In the list now given, it must be understood that, unless specially