ADDITIONS TO THE SUFFOLK
MICROLEPIDOPTERA
ALASDAIR ASTON
year, the Suffolk coast attracted the attention of Messrs. R. M. Mere and E. C. Pelham-Clinton, who collected at Thorpeness and Aldeburgh from lOth to 13th July. Quite apart from their startling discoveries among the Macrolepidoptera, which are reported elsewhere in these Transactions, their observations of Microlepidoptera are a testimony to the increasingly close scrutiny that our fauna is receiving. A list of their captures, which was sent to me for comment by our Society's Recorder for Lepidoptera, includes five species of Microlepidoptera new to the county and has brought to light one other county novelty which had, in fact, been first captured by Mr. H. E. Chipperfield at Aldeburgh in 1962. Several other species noted had been caught very infrequently in Suffolk and one species, Brachmia inornatella, Dougl., had been first recorded in Suffolk as recently as July, 1964, by Messrs. S. Wakely and M. Chalmers-Hunt. THIS
For the sake of eonvenience, I have placed the additions to the county list first. These species are followed by three lists of insects in diminishing order of scarcity in Suffolk, but, in some cases, my " ranking " of a species may be rather arbitrary. These additions to the county list bring the county total to 1,581 species, 76 of which have been added since 1937 when our Society published as its First Memoir the " Final Catalogue of the Lepidoptera of Suffolk ". 62 of these recent additions were listed as a Supplement in 1961 Trans. Suffolk Nat. Soc. 11 : 479-488. N e w to Suffolk 966A(1577)
Bactra robustana, Christoph. Pierce's Marble. Not mentioned in 1937. Taken by Messrs. Mere and Pelham-Clinton at Thorpeness. Mr. L. T. Ford in his " Guide to the Smaller British Lepidoptera " states that the larvae feed in the stems of Scirpus maritimus.
1133 A( 1578)
Cosmopteryx lienigiella, Zell. Contrasted Fen Cosmet. " Norfolk, Cambridge, in fens, local "— Meyrick (" A Handbook of British Lepidoptera ", 1895). Regarded by Claude Morley in the 1937 Catalogue as " probably overlooked ", this species feeds in its larval State on the leaves of Arundo phragmites (L. T . Ford op. cit.). Taken by Messrs. Mere and Pelham-Clinton at Thorpeness. It has recently been discovered outside the eastern counties at Gosport, Hants, by Mr. E. Sadler.