RECORDED FAMILIES OF LEPIDOPTERA
Table 4 shows comparative figures of species recorded from Epping Forest
and the more diverse habitats of Essex as a whole, each list being divided into
the total ever recorded and the number recorded from 1950 onwards; these
figures are, of course, accurate only for the records available to me. The
systematic arrangement is that given by Kloet and Hincks (1972). Readers may
wish to refer back to this table; accordingly, to help those who may be un-
familiar with the sequence, when I refer below to a family it will be followed by
its serial number, e.g. Geometridae (53). The same check-list is followed for
nomenclature, and in it authors' names will be found. English names
(Macrolepidoptera only) are those given by South (1941 and 1961).
The Nepticulidae (4), Lyonetiidae (15), Gracillariidae (17) and Phylloc-
nistidae (18), comprise species whose larvae mine leaves at least for part of their
lives; those which later feed externally have nearly all a recognisable pattern of
feeding. They constitute the least well recorded group and I would expect to be
able to add upwards of 50 species on a single autumnal day from vacated larval
feedings. (I exaggerated: a visit on 29 October 1978 (after this paper was
written) produced only 41 new species. These are not included in the tables.)
One nepticulid, Ectoedemia turbidella was discovered in profusion mining a
single grey poplar at Loughton by the Rev. D. J. L. Agassis. Its only other
known Essex locality is another single tree near Saffron Walden and it has been
recorded from only three sites outside the county.
The single species of the Opostegidae (5) on the list is Opostega
crepusculella which was recorded at Wanstead on the 23rd July 1856 — the sole
record for the county. The most interesting species of the Tischeriidae is
Tischeria angusticollella which mines the leaves of wild rose on Whitehouse
Plain. The Incurvariidae (7), which fly mostly by day, are underrecorded, as a
comparison with the numbers for all Essex will show; one rare and local species,
Nemophora cupriacella, was recorded in 1860 but has not been seen since.
In the Cossidae (9), Zeuzera pyrina (leopard) is still taken regularly, but
Cossus cossus (goat moth) was described as rare by both Doubleday (1836) and
Mendola (1891) and the only recent record is of larvae found at Pole Hill,
Chingford in old poplars by D. Corke in 1957. The Limacodidae (11) are
represented by Heterogenea asella (triangle), which was recorded as widespread
by Harwood (1903) in the Victoria County History (hereafter cited as V.C.H),
but has not been reported since.
The Psychidae (12) are a family threatened by pollution, since most of their
larvae feed on lichens and algae growing on trees. Readers will be sorry to hear
that the only lepidopteron which bears the name of our forest, Psyche ep-
pingella, has been found after dissection of the type specimen, which is in the
British Museum (Natural History), to be conspecific with P. betulina and
reduced to synonymy; (see Haltenschwiler; 1978). Taleporia tubulosa, which
will thrive on dead insects, is the only psychid for which there is a recent record.
The Tineidae (13) or clothes moths, fall into two groups, those that feed in dead
34