§ VIII. THE DOWNS. "The downs, In clearest air ascending, show'd far off A surface dappled o'er with shadows flung WORDSWORTH. UNDER the head of "Downs," I wish to include not only the tracts of country properly so called, but the chalk or limestone districts of the South and West of England, for the plants which grow wild on such soils are not confined to the downs, and the insects which feed on them are distributed, more or less, throughout the range of the formation, from Dover to Bristol. There are many insects seen on the chalk that are common on other soils, but I shall in general confine my attention to such as are peculiar thereto, or occur in unusual abundance. The downs most frequented by the London entomologists are Sanderstead, Riddlesdown and Stoat's Nest, beyond Croydon, Mickleham Downs and the adjacent hills extending from Dorking to Reigate. It is when visiting such localities that the entomologist finds how great an assistance railways are to him, giving him a help that the old race of collectors never possessed nor dreamed of. Half their time was taken up in getting to and from a locality; now their successors may, if they please, be set down at the scene of their labours by breakfast-time. All this seems common-place enough; similar advantages are enjoyed in business and pleasure by every one; nevertheless it makes a deal of difference in the result of a day's collecting whether the collector arrive on the ground fresh or tired; to say nothing of the greater amount of time at his disposal. The downs are a dry and thirsty land, where no water is it is no joke to work hard all day without anything to drink: your only chance of a draught is to carry it with you, unless you happen to stumble on one of the cottages to be found here and there. As for eatables, my advice is to take them also with you in a tin, which, when emptied, will serve for keeping larvæ in, or for other entomological purposes. It is, I think, far better to dine under a hedge than to walk two or three miles in the heat, and as many back again, after eating a dinner which will render you unwilling, if not unable, to go on with your collecting; and, besides, you gain the time. "What more felicitie can fall to creature Than to enjoy delight with libertie?" said old Spenser: to this delight may be added, a companion of open heart and gentle manners, quick at a capture and ready at a repartee; and if, in addition, he be possessed of "the vision and the faculty divine," I know no greater enjoyment than to spend a day in such company. Then we "feel how the best charms of Nature improve When we see them reflected by looks that we love." In the Zoologist' I published a series of papers on "Entomological Localities," in one of which, under the head of "The Downs," of those beyond Croydon I wrote as follows: "The whole district was in former times covered with dense woods of beech and oak, of which but small portions now remain, such as the Purley oaks and the few old beech trees on Sanderstead Downs. Many portions are cultivated, and the rest, scattered over with hedge-rows, thickets of thorn and hazel, bushes of juniper and furze, affords fine pasturage for sheep and 'such small deer' as the entomologist loves to hunt. How long it may be ere we shall have these hunting-grounds swept from us by the advancing tide of cultivation, as the forests and prairies of North America were wrested from the red Indians, I know not; but I see an inroad has lately been made at Stoat's Nest, where many acres of surface have been ploughed up and burnt. Unfortunately, for us there remains no far West; and when these and other haunts have been over-run by the Pale faces' of cultivation, we, or it may be another generation of naturalists, shall look upon British specimens of many now common insects with some such feelings as those with which we view the remains of the Mammoths or Megatherium. I do not think this is any exaggeration, for, in many localities, Whittlesea Mere for instance, in consequence of the altered conditions induced by cultivation, many species of insects are altogether lost or become very rare. A considerable expanse of open country, however, still remains here, and will well repay an entomological search." * 66 Since these remarks were published, Mr. T. V. Wollaston, an entomologist whose opinion on such a matter is entitled to great respect, has written thus:— It is a mistake to suppose that the progress of agriculture tends to lay waste our entomological preserves, and to exterminate insect-life. In some few instances (as in the destruction of forests) this may be, and probably is, the case; but I am convinced that in a general way the very reverse is nearer the truth. The vast superiority of the London district, highly cultivated as it is, over almost every other in England, may be quoted in support of this; and I may add, from personal observation, that I never met with such marked success as along railway embankments, and on other grounds recently turned up by the edges of gardens and fields, where the vegetation is rank and redundant. Let not the collector assume, therefore, that he must needs sally to a distance for his game, since he will often reap a richer harvest a hundred yards from his own door than by taking a 'return ticket' (which involves, moreover the loss of time) for a hundred miles into the country perchance into some cold clayey region where his exertions will prove comparatively fruitless." In so far as the above tends to impress upon collectors the advantages to be derived from searching well their own districts, I heartily concur; but I cannot agree with the learned author in thinking that the progress of agriculture does not tend "to lay waste our entomological preserves and to exterminate insect-life." Why, on the very ground at Stoat's Nest of which I have spoken, I used to take several Lepidoptera which have quite disappeared since the cultivation began, and although the number of insects absolutely is probably as great or greater than it was before, what is that to the collector? There is not one of them that he could not get in any field; and thus he is by this cultivation so much the poorer. Carry out the same principle; cultivate all the waste lands, and what will become of the insects inhabiting them? The edges of cultivated ground may still harbour some of the aboriginal inhabitants; but, confined to such narrow limits, they will gradually become less numerous • and eventually extinct. Whittlesea Mere is another case in point; but I think I need adduce no further instances. may, however, quote the opinions of two of our best known collectors in support of my views. The Rev. J. F. Dawson says, "When we read of the reputed productions of Devonshire, for instance, we naturally demand to know whether cultivation, that greatest foe to the entomologist, has so entirely changed the character of that country (so favourable to the development of insects) that it no longer produces * 'The Entomologist's Annual,' 1855, 2nd edit., p. 102. I |