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C/) O X o l?.l 'V IBRARiES SMITHSONIAN ~ INSTITUTION NOIlDillSNIlillSNI NVINOSHimNVINOSHl CO _ m '^\ or >v = 1 < )0iiniiisNi"'NviN0SHims s3iMVMan libraries^smithsonia r— TT »— -» C/7 _ If) _ IBRARIES SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION NOIiniliSNI NVINOSHll^^ to Z ' CO z -^,; CO -'^ CO ^^^ O x/ 'x >?',.,> X v-> /-'' z /^-^ t v?,«^.. ^ to ' Z £/) IOIiniliSNI_NVINOSHlll^S SHiyVHSIl LIBRARIES SMITHSONIA 2 "•• </' . r; tn ^ ' -I z _j IBRARIES SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION NOIinillSNI NVINOSHIIIM — - c/' - CO goiiniiiSNi NviNOSHims saiHVdan libraries smithsonia Z CO Z -,-. to .':/.^/ I /f1 'y^y braries Smithsonian ~ institution NoiiniiiSNi NviNOSHim <.n *fi ~ < Xi>Nr APRIL 1978 Vol. 11, Parts 1/2 Proceedings and Transactions of The British Entomological and Natural History Society iUN90 1978 Price: £3.00 / : Officers and Council for 1978 President: G. Prior, f.l.s., f.r.e.s. Vice-Presiden ts R. S. Tubbs, O.B.E., F.R.I.B.A., F.R.E.S. Rev. A. J. L. Agassiz Treasurer: R. F. Bretherton, c.b., m.a. Secretary: E. H. Wild, M.I.BIOL. Curator: E. S. Bradford Librarian: A. A. Allen, ph.d., b.sc. Lanternist: S. A. Knill-Jones, a.r.c.m. Ordinary Members of Council: P. A. Sokoloff, M.sc, M.I.BIOL., M.I.S.T., F.R.E.S. Mrs. F. M. Murphy, b.sc. R. Dyke W. G. Tremewan, m.i.biol. B. F. Skinner Col. D. H. Sterling, f.b.c.s. B. J. Jackson C. G. Roche, f.c.a. R. Fairclough A. E. Stubbs, b.sc, f.r.e.s. Editorial Editor: E. P. Wiltshire, c.b.e., f.r.e.s. Address: c/o National Westminster Bank, Cookham, Berks. with the assistance of: T. R. E. Southwood, b.sc, ph.d., a.r.c.s., m.i.biol., f.r.e.s. T. G. Howarth, b.e.m., f.r.e.s., f.z.s. M. W. F. Tweedie, m.a., f.z.s. R. W. J. Uffen, f.r.e.s. E. S. Bradford Published at the Society's Rooms, The Alpine Club, 74 South Audley Street, London, W.l, and printed by Charles Phipps Ltd., 225 Philip Lane, Tottenham, N15 4HL Proceedings and Transactions of The British Entomological and Natural History Society The correct abbreviation of THIS Volume is: 'Proc. Trans. Br. ent. nat. Hist. Soc' Vol. 11 1978 Published at the Society's Rooms, The Alpine Club, 74 South Audley Street, London, W.l, and printed by Charles Phipps Ltd., 225 Philip Lane, Tottenham, LONDON, N.15 PROC. BRIT. ENT. NAT. HIST. SOC, 1978 EDITORIAL Apologies are doubtless due to readers who may have been confused by the editor's address printed in the Proceedings and membership card during recent months. Selling a London flat and moving to the country is not a smooth or swift process these days. There have been several slips between the cup and the lip; one country address, too confidently proclaimed on the inside cover of Vol. 10 (1/2), had to be abandoned to a rival when two would-be purchasers of the flat in succession withdrew. As we go to press the contract for the purchase of a future house has not yet been signed and it seems safer to depend on my bank to forward contributors' mail, even though this is a day or two slower. 1 trust that our next issue will give an address not so subject to mutations as these last three. The Society's list of the Lepidoptera of the garden of Buckingham Palace (not yet sold out! ) has shown that Central London has at least one habitat where, if the only Monarch is the human one, not a few butterflies and moths, with humbler but perhaps longer titles, have either survived from rural days over two centuries, or have penetrated and colonised the royal oasis; however, from the window of my Westminster flat, the most 1 ever saw was a dancing male Vapourer Moth last August, nor had my abode a balcony on which 1 might have set a Robinson trap, to draw from the night sky one or two nocturnal fugitives from nearer gardens. The thirty- mile move to East Berkshire, therefore, to water-meads, chalk downs and beech woods, has been eagerly awaited, but having to be made in mid- January, was entomologically unsatisfactory. About once a week the Natural History Museum and the Society's Rooms in Mayfair will draw me back along the M4. This motorway may be one of the better arterials into the metropolis; but my first morning's trip was performed in a snow-storm, and weather and traffic conditions left much to be desired. Things can but improve from now on, I console myself. Having arrived in the Cookham neighbourhood, there is one old acquain- tance I am certain to find in the summer, if I but break open the seed- heads of the garden hollyhocks, for I have found it there already: this is the Gelechiid Pexicopia malvella (Hiibner), both a town and country moth: I first took it in marshmallow flowers in the Waveney marshes on the Norfolk-Suffolk border, and later in the hollyhocks of Vincent Square, Westminster. I am sure, too, that Her Majesty, if she would like a specimen of two, will find the creature in her hollyhocks, whether in her town garden or that of her residence in East Berkshire. CORRIGENDUM Vol. 10 (3/4), p. 117, line 48: FOR Curculionidae READ Scarabaeidae. PROC. BRIT. ENT. NAT. HIST. SOC, 1978 THE 1977 ANNUAL EXHIBITION (see Plates I and II) The Annual Exhibition took place, as is customary, on the day imme- diately after the Annual Dinner, that is on Saturday, 29th October, the venue again being Chelsea Old Town Hall. The attendance exceeded the previous year's remarkably high figure, 350 members and visitors signing the entry-book. One hundred and ten different exhibits, of which further details are given below, were on show. Considering that the season had been below the average for insects, these figures are remarkable and a cause for satisfaction. As usual, a high standard was achieved by exhibitors. BRITISH MACROLEPIDOPTERA The display of Macrolepidoptera was remarkably interesting, the results of the current poor season being supplemented by a large aftermath of captures and rearing from the brilliance of 1976. Some 60 exhibitors, out of about 100 in all, showed British Macrolepidoptera, either alone, or in a dozen cases along with Microlepidoptera, foreign species, or exhibits of other Orders. A few failed to provide notes, and their exhibits are not recorded here. Highlights were two Noctuid species new to the British list — Blepharita solieri (Bdv.) (fig. 12), a Mediterranean species whose arrival in a light-trap in Roxburghshire is, even in such a year as 1976, hard to explain; and Herminia lunalis (Scop.), whose normal range extends through France and Belgium to the Netherlands and whose appearance in the Thames Valley is less surprising. Besides these, there was a preliminary exhibit of a new species or sub-species in the Thera group of Geometers; and among the Rhopalocera an Erebia, stated to have been caught in the Scottish High- lands in 1969, was recognised during the exhibition as an example of that legendary British species Erebia ligea (L.), the Arran Brown (PI. II, fig. 11). Immigrant species caught in 1977 were few; but they included a Coscinia cribraria arenaria Lempke from Kent, a single Hyles lineata livornica (Esp.) from north Lancashire, and cwo examples from Scotland of the many Eurois occulta (L.) which invaded eastern Britain in 1977. Among 1976 captures not previously exhibited was a notable Trigonophora flammea (Esp.) from West Sussex, with several other scarce immigrants. The number and variety of aberrations was one of the striking features of the exhibition. Some had been caught in the field, others were the result of skilful selective rearing, or of temperature experiments. Among the former, there was a remarkable collection of twelve major aberrations of Argynnis paphia (L.) which had been caught in one wood during 1976 and 1977 (figs. 2, 3), an extreme underside Plebejus argus L. ab. striata (exhibited on behalf of a non-member) (fig. 14), and a probably unique banded aberration of Xestia castanea (Esp.) (fig. 4), as samples of many good things. Among the results of selective breeding, some very fine Hipparchia semele L. ab. holonops Brouwer (fig. 1) were conspicuous. Exhibits of the scarcer resident species and of new county records were thinner than usual; but it was interesting to see specimens in various exhibits of the recently discovered Eriopygodes imbecilla F. (fig. 7) and all three sub-species of Luperina nickerlii Frr. A curious specimen of Clostera curtula L. bred from a larva found near Loch Ness is, if not the first PROC.