3 THE CAUSES WHICH PROPAGATE 



and carcase-baiting for beetles were less esteemed ; and pond- 

 dragg-ing for water-dwellers was alone resorted to, because the 

 long-ed-for puddles were out of bounds and necessitated the 

 breaking through of an obnoxious blackthorn hedge. I, at this 

 time, first heard tell of the oak-haunting Purple Emperor and 

 scarce Black Paphia of the New Forest, and visited Kufus' 

 Stone and the woods and ruins of Netley Abbey. The Norman 

 hunting-ground, already robbed of the beautiful high deer to 

 discourage poaching, but still dank, dark, and lonely in its 

 recess, resounding to the echoing tap of the climbing wood- 

 pecker, and thrilling through all its valleys to the soft voice of 

 the distant cuckoo : the " Abbey of the purple abbots, tranquil 

 yet lively,'"'' covered with the enchanted rubbish-heaps of ages, as 

 yet undesecrated by the griding rail and mechanical spade of the 

 navvies— when can such happy picnics occur again ? 



Subsequent residence in a remote country house in the neigh- 

 bourhood afforded me opportunities of ransacking the early 

 gossamer lawns, quiet lanes, and shad}^ copse clearings of 

 Hampshire ; and now sometimes the dull, wet mornings and 

 vacant fireside evenings were alleviated by the task of identify- 

 ing the obscurer kinds of moths I captured. On the 13th of 

 April, 1867, a year the snow lay long, I was congratulated by 

 Mr. Stainton on the addition of the minute and gnat-like 

 Solenobia conspurcatella to his cabinet. The subject of the 

 communication ran thus : — 



" Dear Sir, — I am favoured with your letter of the 2nd inst., inquiring- 

 respecting a little mcth you have taken near the Southampton Water last 

 month. 



" Your capture is a Solenobia, new to this countrj' ! I have Belgian 

 specimens of it, and apprehend it has never yet been described ; so will write at 

 once to Mons. Fologne on the subject. I rather fancy I saw some specimens 

 at Fontainebleau, which had been captured there the end of last month. Annexed 

 you have all the information I at present possess respecting it." 



" Extract from a letter from Mons. Fologne, of Brussels : — 



"■'March loth, 1851. 



" ' I have bred a species of Talceporia difPering from Tnconspicuella. It is a 

 brilliant grey, spotted with brown, the fringes neatly chequered with brown. I 

 found the cases containing pupaj three weeks ago, whereas the last-named 

 species is still now in the larva state. They were under the bark of a dead 

 tree. ' " 



