Abstract
THE twenty-fifth annual report of the Lancashire and Cheshire Fauna Committee adds a large number of insects to the dual county lists and also to the British area and some species new to science. Among Coleoptera, Philonthus jurgans Tott. was discovered new to science from a specimen obtained at Ashton-under-Lyme in 1935, since when it has been found widespread throughout the British Isles, also occurring in Cheshire at Tarporley and Arden. Aphis davidsoniella Theob., a species that has been separated from A. rumicis L., has been obtained on dock at Preston and Stalybridge. The fly Bairamlia nidicola Ferriere is described as new from material obtained from flies breeding in birds’ nests at Mobberley, Cheshire. Six new moths are added to the dual counties’ lists and one new to Lancashire. The bird, mammal and Lepidoptera notes are largely of local interest, but some of the more general items include the breeding of the death's head moth from larvæ at Raby, Cheshire, a 1927 specimen of the rare migrant Camberwell Beauty at Alderley Edge, Cheshire, numerous foreign insects collected from imported fruit and other goods, the beetle Cryptophagus aculangulus Gyll feeding abundantly on the mould on damp plaster in almost all the new houses in the district, increasing numbers of red squirrels in the Ribble valley and in west Cheshire, detailed reports of the surveys on reed-warblers, tufted duck and turtle-dove surveyed for the British Trust for Ornithology, Lapland bunting at Ainsdale, where the little tern is nesting again, the spotted crake nesting in Cheshire, the bittern at Rostlierne, the quail near Nantwich and increasing numbers of reports about many wading birds and duck formerly considered rare in the districts but which are obviously much more frequently seen now. The committee, of which Prof. J. H. Orton is chairman, has a membership of 280 and commences the year with a surplus of £146.
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Lancashire and Cheshire Fauna. Nature 144, 1042 (1939). https://doi.org/10.1038/1441042b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/1441042b0