EDITORIAL
The butterflies and larger moths are admired by everyone - and have been under greater pressure
from a changing countryside than most other groups of Essex wildlife. It is only ten years since the
publication (by the Essex Naturalists' Trust) of A Guide to the Butterflies and Larger Moths of Essex
but there are many changes in status to be recorded here. This book does much more than just bring
'The Guide' up to date. It includes a complete set of distribution maps, compiled to the same high stan-
dards that Maitland Emmet set in The Smaller Moths of Essex (Essex Naturalist No. 6) which, with
the present work, forms a complete summary of all Essex Lepidoptera.
As in The Smaller Moths the inclusion of family descriptions and illustrations of typical members
of each family is intended to help the general naturalist who is not an expert entomologist.
EDITORIAL ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The Essex Field Club gratefully acknowledges an interest free loan from the Royal Society which
has enabled us to publish this book. The Passmore Edwards Museum has provided help in making the
photographic prints and also made a generous grant towards publication costs for which the Essex
Field Club is most grateful.
Other natural history societies may perhaps be interested to learn that all the typesetting and pro-
duction of the distribution maps was done using a simple BBC home-computer. Any societies wishing
to have information and copies of the map-making programs should contact David Corke at Tye
Green House, Wimbish, Essex CB10 2XE.
AUTHORS' ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors wish to express their grateful thanks to John Heath and the staff of the Biological
Records Centre at Monks Wood for making available all Essex records in their possession; to the
Trustees of the British Museum (Natural History) for much valuable advice and for providing
facilities for the examination of Essex material in the National Collection; and to the staff of
Rothamsted Experimental Station for furnishing lists of records from Rothamsted traps operating in
Essex.
They are also indebted to Jeremy Heath and Mrs Kate Hawkins of Colchester Natural History
Museum, Colin Plant of the Passmore Edwards Museum. Stratford, and John Skinner and Roger
Payne of Southend General Museum for providing records in the museums' possession; to Vivian
Veal, warden of Parndon Wood Nature Reserve, for facilitating the examination of the H.Mace
collection; and to the Essex Naturalists' Trust and its honarary wardens for allowing recording to be
undertaken on its many reserves.
Last, and certainly not least, the authors acknowledge the recording work undertaken by the many
contributors to the systematic list and distribution maps. Without their strenuous and dedicated
labours this publication would not have been possible.
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