327
A Survey of Essex Lepidoptera
in the past Fifty Years
BY H. C. HUGGINS, F.R.E.S.
[Read 27 November, 1955]
IN dealing with this subject, I wish to say at once that I am omitting
Epping Forest and the London District, with which I am almost without
personal knowledge, my Epping insects having nearly all been obtained
from the late A. Thurnall, Russell James, Douglas Smart and from Dr.
E. A. Cockayne.
As a starting point, I am using the account of Essex Lepidoptera com-
piled by the late W. H. Harwood, of Colchester, in 1901 for the Victoria
County History, a copy of which was given me by his son, the late B. S.
Harwood.
I think first that I should deal with those species that have since become
extinct in the county. So far as I can trace, these are happily confined
to the following few species. The Dark Tussock (Dasychira fascelina), the
Small Ranunculus (Hadena dysodea), the Bright Wave (Sterrha ochrata)
and the Frosted Yellow (Isturgia limbaria). Other insects undoubtedly
taken in Essex before 1901 but gone before that date, are the Wood White
(Leptidea sinapis), the Three-humped Prominent (Notodonta tritophus),
the Dusky Marbled Brown (Gluphisia crenata), the Fiery Clearwing
(Aegeria chrysidiformis) and the Black-veined Looper (Siona lineata).
Of these, only S. lineata appears to call for any comment. It was taken
fairly freely on the slopes at Leigh-on-Sea about 100 years ago and then
disappeared, probably from over-collecting. It is a very easy moth to
catch and also a conspicuous one, and was destroyed from that cause at
Chattenden, near Cliffe, on the opposite side of the Thames, about 50
years later. In the V.C.H. is a record of a specimen taken by Captain B.
Blaydes Thompson at Burnham-on-Crouch on July 25, 1900 (a very late
date, a month after the usual emergence time). A few years after the
publication of the V.C.H., this specimen was shown to the Rev. C. R. N.
Burrows, of Mucking, who saw at once that it was the well-known Pyralid
Loxostege palealis, so that there is no record of lineata near the period
with which I am dealing.
The Dark Tussock was formerly found in several places in north Essex
and near Southend. It gradually became scarcer, chiefly from the destruc-
tion of the heathery places it frequented, and has not been seen, as far as
I can trace, for over 30 years, though it may possibly still linger in some
remote spot.
The Small Ranunculus is a mystery so far as Britain is concerned. At
the beginning of the century it was still common in many parts of the
Eastern Counties, and was even considered a pest on lettuce seed in nur-
series, but within 20 years it apparently became extinct in Britain for no
known cause. Odd specimens have recently been found in Hertford,
possibly the result of a migration, but so far as Essex is concerned there
is no record after 1920.