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HARDWICRE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



species, and that it is the bounden duty of man, in 

 view of his own interests, to take all possible means 

 to lessen its ever-increasing numbers. 



Lofthonse. 



A MIDSUMMER RAMBLE OVER THE 



SURREY DOWNS IN QUEST OF 



BUTTERFLIES. 



By the Author of "Insect Variety." 



IT is the heyday of summer. The sun is again 

 looking over the hill on the picturesquely 

 Elizabethan town of Guildford. The old grey keep 

 that reverberates with dreamy echoes and stares owl- 

 like at the upspringing day, holds eternal watch over 

 the shattered palace walls, where our Plantagenet 

 monarchs caroused at Yule-tide, over the remnants of 

 the boar, the deer and the swan.* Within the silence 

 of its oratory; scribbled over with effigies of Christo- 

 pher, the canny child bearer, and Charon, the importu- 

 nate ferryman, crucifixions a la mode, crowns, shields, 

 doves, and Catherine-wheels ; the Morte Darthur 

 suggests that the fair Elaine pined and died of love 

 for Sir Launcelot, peerless in knighthood. Stream- 

 ing over dewy flowers and pearly cobwebs, the slant 

 sun-rays creep into the decrepit chapel of the Baptist, 

 and flicker over faded masterpieces in Italian dis- 

 temper, representing Gospel stories and instructive 

 legends, where figures of Norman monarchs, Ethio- 

 pian slaves, monks and scribes, are the puppets of a 

 galaxy of Egyptian gods and legendary spirits, 

 Anubis, Horus and Michael. Where the sunlight 

 glints over bald elms to sleep on the walls of the 

 old moated mansions of Loseley, Tangley or Sutton ; 

 the stained glass casts the light of other days over oak 

 panelling and carved chalk mantelpieces, while the 

 air at the porch becomes fragrant with chamomile, 

 tansy, and other aromatic herbs, that our ancestors put 

 into their tea or cakes.f But a nightmare of antiqui- 

 ties is not my happiest vision of the morning. The 

 sun now high in heaven reaches my window-pane, 

 and its warm ray smiting on my forehead, causes my 

 sleepy thoughts to wander away into Fairy-land, 

 where some beautiful water-spirit, newly arisen from 

 the crystal mirror of the Silent Pool, is bending over 

 me with eyes glistening with emeralds and molten 

 ■ diamonds. Around me hang the creamy blossom of 

 the sloe and emerald shade of the hawthorn, while a 

 mingled essence of cowslips, violets and furze, seems 

 to load the air. In my ear echoes a strange accent 



* Mr. Frank Lasham, of Guildford, has lately discovered in 

 the rear of his premises in the High Street, the castle refuse-pit, 

 Tilled with bones of the horse, ox, sheep, deer, wild boar, and 

 ■other animals ; associated with layers of charred wood, objects 

 of iron, glass, pottery, and other convivial relics. 



■f The Anthcmis nobilis grows in profusion by the moat at 

 Loseley ; the Tanacetum vulgare is conspicuous in the pleasure- 

 grounds at Sutton. 



resembling the throbbing of the nightingale, confused 

 with the delicious warbling of the throstle cock. My 

 heart experiences the unrest of the dog-days, and 

 that stinging brute Stomoxys calcitrant has joined 

 himself to the house-flies who are sounding an attack. 

 I start with a shudder. Pshaw, the cat ! I then 

 remember I have determined to give myself a holiday 

 in order to find something fresh to communicate to 

 Science-Gossip, so with perfect nonchalance I 

 watch the dance of flies on the ceiling, and an arach- 

 nide endeavouring to fix a thread, until I grow weary. 

 I then arise and dress, I breakfast and make for the 

 foot track leading up the hill. As I pass along, I 

 notice an old acquaintance setting flowers out in his 

 garden. I greet him, but he tells me he has obtained 

 all the species of butterfly in the country, so I simply 

 move on. As I climb the slope, my attention is 

 attracted to the foliage, and the singular Rembrandt 

 effect conferred by the late cold wind. The trees are 

 all seared with premature autumn. On its southern 

 aspect the elm I am approaching is crisp and umber, 

 and the quickset beside me is all of a sienna hue. 

 The stunted oaks in the hedge appear to be hung 

 with charred paper, as though there had been a feast 

 of lanterns. The young sap has refused to flow to 

 the emerald bud, and the cyclone mocked the south 

 with its saline and icy breath, for it whirleth about 

 continually. It was the same, the old chronicles sug- 

 gest, in the year of our Lord 1247, when a terrible 

 earthquake visited England and houses went to 

 wreck. We have had this year an earthquake in 

 Wales, and it has struck me that these fitful agues 

 are upon us, when the more equatorial portions of 

 the globe are enjoying immunity. 



But see, my meteorological reverie has taken me 

 up the Elm-tree hill, along the summit, and past the 

 Chilworth sign-post. As I trudge over the old 

 oblong trench, forty feet by eighty, I stoop and 

 wrench from the sward an antique pair of metal- 

 nippers, that makes me suspect that this excavation 

 in the chalk was dug by ignorant miners searching for 

 iron ore.* Now I reach the gnarly yew, silvery with 

 the parasitic white-beam spray, and the solitudes of 

 Newland's Corner, the best butterfly locality here- 

 abouts, lie before me. Primeval silence encompasses 

 me. Are there no mammoths stirring, no white harts 

 and wild cats, no outlaws and nut-brown maids, 

 nothing but my lord's partridges and small game ? 

 " Not quite a poacher yet, my man," I exclaim, as I 

 plunge as of old into the sun and shade of the ferny 

 glades, and an orange-winged fritillary {Argynnis 

 Euphrosyne) that moment glides past me ; the 

 speckled yellow ( Vcnilia maculatd) too, is out in 

 gay profusion. I track a path lavish with the 

 turquoise of forget-me-nots, that conducts into the 



* I deposited my treasure in the Guildford Institute, where 

 it maybe seen by the curious, and I dropped a note to a gentle- 

 man said to be fond of archaeological research on my return. 



