WCP676

[1]¹

12.8.79

To your enquiry² "How many species of Lepid. are peculiar to "the British Isles?" I am disposed to reply "Are there any?" Chrys. dispar [Chrysophanus dispar] is now held to be only a climatic form of the Hippothoe of Hübner & Poly. Artaxerxes a climatic form of Agestis (Astrarche of Staudinger’s Catalogue).³

If any British species are not yet known to occur on the Continent they will most probably be detected there before long.

Staudinger’s Catalogue of European Lepidoptera (1871) gives the geogr. distr. of the species— & where he has "Angl." only— the insect is not known as occurring in Continental Europe.

Many species are very local— but also occur in other & distant localities— & till every spot has been searched, it is hard to say that such & such a species does not occur— it is always difficult to prove a negative.

The occurrence in Perthshire in ^{S M.M. 12. p 85} July 1875 of such a large & conspicuous Tortrix as Ablabia argentana (Gouana) is a striking instance. It is not yet known to occur in England, or in the North of France,— but that it exists there though overlooked, one can hardly doubt.