30
II.
The Macro-Lepidoptera of the District around Maldon,
Essex.
By Gilbert H. Raynor, M.A.,
Vice-President of the Cambridge Entomological Society.
[Read May 20th, 1882.]
The character of the country round Maldon is of a very
varied description, and consequently affords a good hunting-
ground to the student of Natural History. To the east lies
the Blackwater, the estuary of which is bounded by low-
lying alluvial marshes, at the present time mostly under
grass, which is grazed by Bullocks, Sheep, and Horses. Here
is an absence of all trees, except a few pollard willows along
the banks of the ditches bounding the uplands from the
marshes—a weary expanse of desolate lands, which tempts
us, in the words of the poet,
" To watch the crisping ripples on the beach,
And tender curving lines of creamy spray ;
To lend our hearts and spirits wholly
To the influence of mild-minded melancholy."
The marshes are protected from the tide by an artificial
embankment of soil, commonly called a sea-wall. The vege-
tation of the Salterns, the land outside the wall over which
the tide flows every twelve hours, is quite peculiar; yet is it
somewhat destitute of insect-life, except in autumn, when
the gay masses of Aster trifolium throw a golden glory over
all the land. These and the flowers of other plants indigenous
to the marshes attract several common Noctua? in considerable
numbers ; but collecting is far from easy, owing to the net-
work of salt-water rills with which the marshes are intersected.
Several Micro-Lepidoptera are attached to these Saltern
plants, more especially to Plantago maritima, and various
species of Statice and Aster. This district, I regret to say, 1