18 HUNTING AMONG THE 



prove that they were groundless, and as this is the first evening 

 meeting of the Society for practical work, it will not, 1 think, be 

 out of place if, before entering on the subject of this paper, I say 

 a few words concerning the reason why I took this work in hand. 

 The time I was able to give to it was unfortunately very restricted, 

 and I must therefore ask you to make allowance for any short- 

 comings, both in the results and the way in which I place the 

 matter before you to-night. As I said before, there were only 

 two aspersions thrown at the young Society which gave me some 

 uneasiness until I was able to prove them groundless. These were 

 as follows : — 



First. — It was suggested " that the Flora and Fauna of Mid- 

 dlesex had been so thrashed out that there was no need of any 

 further Natural History Society." 



Second. — The question was asked, " What was there to catch 

 in a county, a great part of which was covered by London and its 

 suburbs ? " 



Now, with regard to the first objection : — Before the present 

 Society was founded, I made very careful enquiries through pub- 

 lishers and private sources to try and find some comprehensive 

 list of the Fauna and Flora of Middlesex, but the search, on 

 behalf of the Fauna especially, was quite unsuccessful, until in 

 June I secured a list published this year by, probably, the most 

 flourishing Natural History Society in Middlesex, and one that 

 could boast of a special Fauna and Flora Committee. Now, 

 though I am always an enthusiastic observer of insect life in all 

 its stages, it was just sixteen years since I had taken and set any 

 entomological specimen in England, and my hand might therefore 

 be supposed to be somewhat out of practice ; but in running 

 through the list I missed so many species which long ago I had 

 seen abounding both in Surrey and Hertfordshire and several 

 species, the larvae of which I had actually watched contentedly 

 eating up the solid wood of my fruit-trees and the best of my 

 flowering plants in the spring and summer of last year, the pupge 

 of many of which had also fallen to the spade of my gardener 

 when taking up the bedding-out plants for the winter, that I deter- 

 mined to try some of the methods which I found so successful in 

 years gone by : — I tried the experiment first with the Lepidoptera, 



