(4). Merseyside County Museum, Liverpool per Dr I.D.Wallace. Pierce.
(5). One or two records have been received from the Hope Department,
Oxford University and the museums at Cardiff and Melbourne Australia
Acknowledgements.
My sincere thanks are due to the contemporary entomologists who have sent
me their records; none need feel if these are few that they are unimportant. I
wish in particular to thank Mr K.R. Tuck for eliciting and collating the records
made by his colleagues at the British Museum (Natural History) and Dr
I.D. Wallace who performed the laborious task of listing all the micro-
lepidoptera in the Merseyside County Museum. For two years Mrs Christine
Harley despatched to me all the microlepidoptera from the Rothamsted trap
at the Writtle Agricultural College; her name does not follow the resultant
records because she is not herself and entomologist, but they would not exist at
all if it were not for the trouble she has taken. Likewise I owe a special debt to
Mr Ian Sims who has given me for determination all the 'micros' from his trap at
Chigwell Row. Mr R.G.Adams has kindly supplied records of pest and other
species held at the Slough Laboratory of the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries
and Food. I apologise to authors of published records I may have overlooked.
I owe a different sort of debt to The Flora of Essex by the late Stanley
Jermyn, which has been described as the best county flora ever written. It has
accompanied me on my recording expeditions and has been at my elbow during
the writing of this list. The link between moths and their food-plants is intimate:
one cannot study one without the other. The Flora is an essential part of every
Essex Lepidopterist's equipment.
Finally, this list would never have been conceived but for the Essex
Naturalists' Trust. Through its Lepidoptera Panel, it has given me every form
of encouragement, as well as the run of its 40 nature reserves which feature so
prominently in the records. A prerequisite of conservation is the careful study
of our flora and fauna, and the list is written on behalf of the Trust to help it in
its task of preserving our heritage.
THE SYSTEMATIC LIST
The following notes explain the layout of the list and the conventions that
have been used.
Family descriptions.
These notes have been written for the guidance of the non-specialist reader.
Their brevity necessitates generalisation and the characteristics described may
not be present in all species. Subfamilies are cited only within certain families
where they offer convenient headings for these descriptions. The moths are
described by size according to the following rather approximate scale,
measurement being taken from wing-tip to wing-tip with the wings fully
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