Nevertheless, we do have five species to add to out County list though two of these were actually found in 1991 but did not get to me in time to be recorded. Hugh Michaelis, on one of his all too rare visits to Cheshire, stopped off near Bickley (SJ54) and whilst sampling the micros along a lane took a specimen of the Small Seraphim. SJ54 was also the site of the second delayed record when in 1991 a nest of Small Eggar larvae were found near Marbury and taken to Roger Robinson. He passed me the record as soon as the first one hatched in February '92. I was startled to find a rather worn male Birch Mocha in my trap on 2nd June (SJ87), I can find no earlier record of this species in Cheshire but it reminded me of the Angle-striped Sallow I had taken the previous September; I can't help feeling that there are Birch feeding species breeding in some of the relict mosslands between here (Alderley Edge) and Congleton. The Varied Coronet has been spreading slowly across the country in the past twenty years or so, and one was taken by J. Dagnall in High Lane (SJ98) on the 27th June, and another by John Thompson in Heald Green (SJ88) on the 13th July '92. Finally, in mid-September, Roger Robinson had a single specimen of the Delicate at Combermere (SJ54); this moth has been really common in Cornwall this Autumn, more plentiful than ever before.

The spread of the Varied Coronet is only a shadow of that of Blair's Shoulder-knot which we only added to our list in 1989 and had just four records of single specimens until this year when we added another five squares and some at least of these represented several specimens; the planting of garden cupressus is evidently being appreciated by at least one species! Of the 250 new records which we did get, no less than 46 were in SJ37 due to the efforts of the Parrys. Three were notable, being only the second square for the species: Oak Lutestring in SJ55 and Welsh Wave in SJ44 both by Paul Griffiths and his colleagues, and Crescent Striped in SJ36 by John Raines who also took the rare migrant Small Mottled Willow. There were three new squares each for the Dog's Tooth and the Red-green Carpet; the latter appears to be getting commoner whilst the former is a reflection of the much greater recording effort we now have in the West. A Bordered Sallow in SJ98 is about 50 kilometres east of all previous records. Paul Griffiths' team made two sorties into SJ74 and recorded over 50 species in this square which was previously unworked in Cheshire, though well worked by Brian Holdsworth at Woore in Shropshire while, ironically, much of the square lies in Staffordshire!

At the other end of the scale, another twelve species were recorded in the only square(s) from which they were missing, so we now have 81 species recorded from all 31 squares making up Cheshire. I look forward to seeing this total up to 100 and wonder if that will happen before the overall species total reaches 500? It stands at 498 at the time of writing (Jan.1993). New species tend to turn up unexpectedly but common things will only be found where they are missing if we look for them, very few of them are absent from any square where there is a trap in regular operation.

C.I. Rutherford - (Tel.: 01625-583683) January 1993