214 THE entomologist's reookp. 



effects are allowed in the highest circles of art. It is like the gauze 

 veil across the stage to soften the tableau. And what a tableau it is ! 

 I really must be allowed one note of exclamation. Firstly water, lots 

 of water, coming along out of the misty distance, and lapping on the 

 very railway. What a pity we cannot stop the train and have a swim. 

 No kicking of heels, but a dream-swim, where we put our cheek doAvn 

 on the water, and feel it moving, and hear it talking, and swim right 

 on. That is the kind of swim for a morning like this. I don't know 

 what there is in salt water that alwaj's maddens me — it is very nasty 

 to swallow, and I get tired of the sea after two or three days. But 

 the first peep like this always makes me feel ' all-overish,' and anxious 

 to do something worthy of the occasion. Well ! our tableau is taking 

 too long. But you may just as well look at Southampton kicking its 

 heels in the water, like a rather dirty red and brown little boy. You'll 

 think it picturesque if you try long enough. And ships of all sorts 

 and sizes make a very charming background to the stage, with a dim 

 line of woodland on the right. And round goes the sleepy old train, 

 right into the gi^een heart of this very woodland, first through meadows 

 with big oaks in the hedges, and jirimrose banks, and a brown stream 

 with alders, then past acres of Scotch firs, which send their scent right 

 into the carriage Av^indow, and then straight into a great aisle of trunks, 

 like — well ! like a ball, or whatever you call that lump of wood, shaped 

 like a cheese, into a group of skittles. I make no apologies for the simile, 

 because we are getting well past Lyndhurst Road Station, and must do 

 something desperate to stop ourselves. Besides, there is some delicious 

 moorland ahead, which I should dearly like to talk about, and several 

 of you know your line far too well for me to alter the ])osition of the 

 station, so as to work it in. 



I'll have my revenge though, for we'll go there first. Is it an 

 ancestral custom, or school rules, written or unwritten, which makes 

 you come in flannel trousers instead of knickerbockers and gaiters ? 

 You won't find the long heather very nice. However, come along, 

 you'll find plenty of Boarmia cinctaria on the trunks of those dwarf 

 firs among the heather. Take your own line please, and don't cut 

 across to likely looking trees in mine ; they are often on the very 

 smallest ones. Aren't they hard to see at first, with their Avings flat 

 along the bark, just the colour of the triink ? Sliall you look on other 

 trees ? Certainly ! the larva feeds on the heather and not on the firs. 

 Some of the moths have great white bands on the wings, quite dif- 

 ferent from the type. They are easy to see, and rare probably for that 

 reason. I shouldn't wonder if they are survivals of an older tyjje. 

 But I'm not sure of my tree knowledge. Aren't all these firs an artifi- 

 cial growth, and was not the birch the old original scrub here ? There 

 are old birches right out among the heather — not many, but enough for 

 a theory, and all the firs are young. If this is right, the pale birch 

 stems would protect a pale moth. In those days perhaps cinctaria were 

 pale-coloured, lighter even than that very white one you took. Then 

 came the firs, and cinctaria liked sitting on them too. And so tlie 

 darker ones (those, I mean, that are accidentally a trifle darker) got off 

 without being seen. And as the firs drove the birches out, it was tlie 

 lighter ones that got scored off. And so thej' got gradually more and 

 more like the fir trunks, because the likest ones escaped the birds 

 and the children took after their pajDas and mammas. And now I 



