282 THE ENTOMOLOfilST's nEOORD. 



Rainliam, the seat of my present investigations, is not itself a veiy 

 inviting place. If any of you travelled to Southend in daj's gone by, or 

 to Gravesend by Tilbury now-a-days, you w^ill, I am sure, know the 

 place. It is the j)lace for stinhs. 



Here cabbages, onions and other vegetables are grown for the London 

 markets ; and here, also, the condemned fish from Billingsgate, the 

 blood from Smithfield, and the bones from everywhere, are worked up 

 into manures. The sweepings of streets and markets, the dust and 

 rul)bish from contractors' yards, sometimes even the offal from the 

 slaughter yards, all, I believe, make their M'ay to Kainham, s})reading 

 their aroma far and Avide, until they are converted once more into 

 cabbages, and sent back whence they came. 



But you must not su|)pose that you know Eainham from Avhat you 

 see from the railway line. The parish extends over a wide area. My 

 boundaries extend three miles north-east and three miles south-east, while 

 some two-and-a-half miles of the northern bank of the river Thames come 

 under my care. This district embraces a variety of country. Towards 

 the river, it consists of marshes, reed-beds and coarse-grass lands, with 

 occasional saltings and mud-banks ; while to the north and east, the 

 land rises gradually and becomes more wooded. But even this higlier 

 land is not so i^roductive as one would expect. The farmers fell what 

 trees they dare, and the hedges are cropped down in the merciless fashion, 

 which denotes, I believe, the presence of "high cultivation" and 

 "scientific farming." 



But be the district what it may, so far as actual collecting goes it 

 interests me little. My occupation limits my efforts chiefly to the use 

 of sugar. It is rarely that I get a chance of using the net. Hapjiily I 

 have a decent garden, and this garden I " sugar " regularly every night, 

 from March or April to October, by which time I find that human 

 nature refuses to set out any more insects, and my captures generally 

 go either mouldy, or else hopelessly stiff. I sugar then regularly in 

 my own garden, just beside the railway station (where, by the way, I 

 notice sometimes that a whistle from a passing engine will startle insects 

 off the sugar), and also, once a week, in a spinny some three miles away, 

 which spinny is my nearest approach to a wood. Once or twice I have 

 tried sugar among the reed-beds, with no result, save the very curious 

 captures which will be noticed farther on. 



Every night, during tlie months I have indicated, the sugar pot is 

 brought out (usually by a small boy duly instructed in the art), 

 almost every tree and post in the garden is smeared with the mixture, 

 and the "round " is visited by me as early or as late as I can manage. 



I use the coarsest, moistest, darkest sugar obtainable. All of you 

 know, of course, what a difference there is in sugars. Like the nigger, 

 they may be known h/f the smell. The ideal sugar, for our purpose, 

 " Jamaica Foots " — so difficult to oljtaiu now — being the lowest part of 

 the contents of the hogsheads of mvrejined sugar, was ahvays to be known 

 by its sweet smjary smell, but most samples now obtainable lack this, 

 and I imagine, that they are either prepared from beet-root, or else 

 have gone through some new process of refining, which has removed 

 the nice, though it has certainly developed the nasty, odour. This 

 odour is itself deceptive, for I have heard of an entomologist, who felt 

 sure that the sugar which he used was the right, because it smelf of feet. 



I mix the sugar with beer to the consistency of treacle, add methy- 



