My regular recorders were all saying how little was coming to their traps, particularly in the early part of the year. There was some recovery in the late summer, but it was not maintained and the autumn was well below par with an almost complete absence of immigrants.

For the first time we made no addition to the species list for Cheshire, whilst at the other end of the spectrum we failed to add a single species to the list of species recorded in all 10 kilometre squares.

If we hadn't any new moths, at least we had a couple of new recorders whom we welcome to the fold. Both are in what we have regarded as well worked squares, but both have made several additions to the species recorded in their square. Tom Paxton from Irby has made several additions to SJ28 including the Seraphim and the Old Lady, in spite of living quite close to Alan Creaser. David Poynton has been trapping in Prestbury and he is in SJ87. He is only a couple of miles from my Alderley Edge trap, nut he too has made several additions to our records including Freyer's Pug and the Tawny Pinion, which I have never seen at Alderley.

These experiences just confirm that a single garden trap does not give a full picture of the populations of a square, as if we did not already know that ! The number of things taken by Jack Swan at Jodrell Bank that I do not get at Alderley had already proved this but Eric Rudge has carried this a stage further by taking his trap to sites between 50 and 200 yards from his home and thus adding several species to the SJ69 list. Eric has also filled in some gaps by making a careful comparison of my latest list with his own, and has thus spotted four species that have slipped through the clerical net and got omitted from the published records. Would that all recorders would make such a check, not made any easier by the distortion of the tables in "Macro-Moths in Cheshire 1961-1993" for which corrections and guidance are available where called for.

C.I. Rutherford (01625-583683) - February 1995.

The following new records were received for Vice-County 58 (Cheshire) in 1994: - an asterisk (*) indicates a new species for the county; the number at the extreme left is the Bradley & Fletcher code from their publication: "A Recorder's Log Book or Label List of British Butterflies and Moths" - J.D. Bradley and D.S. Fletcher (1979) :-