1916.] 87 



Tliauies, where tliey meet the Londoii clay, while in other directions they 

 are terminated at a greater or less distance by the surrounding chalk. 

 Formerly, and that not more than a century ago, the whole country, at 

 the south-western edge of which Crowthorne now stands, must have been 

 a ba,rren and inhospitable waste. Here it was that the guard of the 

 Bristol coach used to look well to the priming of his pistols, for the 

 notorious Bagshot Heath formed part of the district in question. 

 Indeed, these great stretches of woodland, which to-day form the salient 

 feature of the locality, are but of quite recent growth. A Grovernment 

 Report before me gives their planting as not more than 30, 40, or, in the 

 case of the oldest woods, 80 years ago ; and there still remain evidences 

 of its former condition — a few very aged beeches and occasional oaks 

 among the pine trees, while the mossy hollows and abundantly scattered 

 birches testify to a state of things more like a Lancashire " moss " 

 than really old forest land. These hollows have been, in many cases, 

 deepened and banked up, so that the numerous " meres " and pools^ 

 which form so attractive a feature in the scenery of the district, are 

 mostly artificial. 



Hence it comes that there is a distinct dualism in its flora and 

 fauna. There are the plants, the birds, and the insects of the old 

 heaths and mosslands, and even of the scattered genuine woodland 

 which, two centuries ago, had preceded them ; and then there is the 

 fauna, especially the Entomological fauna, which has been introduced, 

 or at any rate stimulated and extended, by the arrival in predominating 

 numbers of the Scots firs on the scene ; and it is the attempt to dis- 

 tinguish or disentangle these separate elements in the fauna of our 

 district that makes its study so interestinsr. 



Now it is far from my purpose to tabulate here all that is known 

 of the Coleoptera of the country immediately round Crowthorne, or 

 to make any record of its species. Abler pens than mine have con- 

 tributed to the pages of this Magazine, during recent years, many and 

 interesting records of the fauna of " Wellington College " (which, how- 

 ever, is a building and a station, and not a locality) . Moreover, much of 

 this district is so near, and corresponds so closely with (to the Coleop- 

 terist) the almost classic field of Woking, Horsell, and Chobham, and 

 West Surrey generally, that their recording from Crowthorne would 

 appear to be little better than repetition. Yet a few notes, due to the 

 continuous attention given to some special element in the fauna of even 

 the most limited area, are sometimes of interest, and this must be my 

 excuse for the fragmentary observations which folk>w. The phenomenon 



