HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



219 



accomplished the purpose of its existence ; and so it 

 has, but may there not have been a previous element 

 in the case ? Even casual observers must have 

 noticed that the further you get away from the 

 homes and haunts of men, the more scarce becomes 

 the white butterfly, while with many of the brightly 

 coloured species the reverse is the case. This, prima 

 facie, is of course only equivalent to saying that one 

 finds the most suitable food for its larvse in the 

 garden, and the others in the fields and lanes, but 

 the following incident will, I think, carry the point a 

 little further. The most notable instance of the 

 destructive operations of the caterpillar of the large 

 white butterfly, which came under the writer's notice 

 in 1883, was near a railway station on the Great 

 Northern Railway, where a bed of plants of the 

 brassica tribe (I think cauliflower) was completely 

 denuded of every vestige of leaf, leaving nothing but 

 the bare fibre and stalk of the plants. Two or three 

 yards from the end of this cabbage bed, was a newly- 

 erected waiting-room, constructed of wood from 

 ground to roof. Up this structure the tribes of 

 caterpillars went from the cauliflower bed in such 

 numbers as to occupy every board in the roof ! Forty 

 or fifty yards away from this spot, but with no 

 suitable hibernating quarters for the caterpillars to 

 pass into the chrysalis state in, were similar cabbage- 

 beds, but in this case the injury caused by the 

 caterpillars was mild in comparison with the havoc 

 wrought on the plants near the waiting-room. Was 

 this predilection for the plants near the structure 

 merely a coincidence ? Or was it a recognition on 

 the part of the butterflies, that the spot would afford 

 the best chance of the caterpillars passing the 

 chrysalis state in peace and comfort? Had the 

 butterflies no interest in their progeny beyond 

 providing them with proper feeding ground in the 

 larva state, or did their instinct lead them to select 

 a feeding-ground for one stage of their progeny near 

 a suitable accommodation for the succeeding, or 

 chrysalis stage 1 The point is one which might be of 

 some interest in market gardening districts, or where 

 cabbages, &c, are planted in open situations. To this 

 note on butterflies I may add that, in August last, I 

 put a specimen of the peacock {Vanessa- Id) into a 

 laurel bottle in which the leaves, though not very 

 fresh, were sufficiently strong to at once stupefy 

 the insect. When the time came for getting the 

 specimen on to the setting-board I had quite forgotten 

 my prisoner, and, being away from home for some time 

 afterwards, I thought no more of the butterfly for 

 more than a fortnight afterwards. On opening the 

 bottle and taking out the butterfly, it flew across the 

 room on to a table, and after a few exertions akin to 

 a gasp (audible), apparently on account of the sudden 

 change of atmosphere, it flew away in vigorous style 

 over the neighbouring houses as if nothing had 

 happened to it ! I do not mention this as evidence 

 against the use of the laurel bottle, because very 



much depends, of course, upon the frequency with 

 which the laurel leaves are changed ; but it shows 

 how little the butterfly needs in the way of susten- 

 ance, in this the perfect stage of its existence, and 

 how easily^it can adapt itself to a different kind of 

 atmosphere. 



Reverting once more to ornithological^ subjects, 

 the season of 1884 was somewhat remarkable for 

 the free breeding of our fine old British bird the 

 kingfisher, a circumstance probably due to the 

 absence of floods ; at any rate, taxidermists have 

 rarely had such a harvest of kingfisher customers. 

 When King James I. had a hunting box and stables 

 (still in existence) in that neighbourhood for indulging 

 his hunting proclivities, it is on record that his majesty 

 frequently resorted to Royston, especially "at y e 

 season for shooting of dotterails, a sort of bird very 

 common in these parts." I am afraid if his majesty 

 could visit "these parts" now he would find the 

 dotterell (Charadrius Morinellus) almost unknown ; 

 for it has now become very rare, and during the past 

 year, as far as I can learn, has not been seen in its 

 old haunts. 



The welcome rainfall in September, with the 

 warm weather which followed, produced after such 

 an exceptional period of drought, some very curious 

 manifestations in the vegetable kingdom, and led to not 

 a few "strawberry" paragraphs in the newspapers, 

 chronicling the abnormal appearance of ripe straw- 

 berries and apple blossoms at Michaelmas. The 

 most singular instance of this kind which came under 

 the writer's notice was a horse chestnut tree standing 

 in the Hitchen market place, and which, though then 

 divested of nearly every leaf, had quite a number'of 

 fine spikes of bloom upon it on October 21st. The 

 large white butterfly was on the wing until about 

 October 25th ; the peacock and small tortoiseshell 

 to the last day of the month, and the hardy passion- 

 flower {Passiflora ccerulea) bloomed in the open air 

 until the same date. About thirty species of wild 

 flowers were in bloom up to the middle of November. 

 One incident, as a curiosity of natural history, may 

 perhaps form a fitting close to the above record of 

 odd fragments. It is not often that in the chapter of 

 oddities among inferior living creatures, one comes 

 across an incident embodying such an apparent sense of 

 the ludicrous, or so much of the elements of a smart 

 practical joke, as in the following case of insulting a 

 scarecrow. The incident was narrated to the writer 

 by Mr. Norman, the naturalist whose name I have 

 mentioned above. Finding it necessary to put up 

 something as a scarecrow, for the protection of a 

 particular crop in his garden, he fastened up in a tree 

 a dilapidated specimen of a stuffed fox. Exposure 

 soon resulted in poor Reynard showing signs of decay ; 

 but imagine the owner's astonishment at the end of 

 the summer, on finding that an impudent pair of fly- 

 catchers had actually built their nest inside the scare- 

 crow, and brought up their brood of young ones there ! 



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