4 . [June, 



there had been in England and Scothmd severe cold and remarkably 

 heavy snow, and though snoio had fallen heavily here also, the winter 

 had been in this district comparatively mild, the snow disappearing 

 almost immediately, and that, in fact, for many years before, there had 

 been little or no intense cold in Pembrokeshire. This mildness of 

 weather continued through the three subsequent winters, there really 

 was no hard frost, and snow was only occasionally seen on the hills. 

 The predominence through each winter of winds from the south-east, 

 south, west, and especially the south-west, all coming off a sea kept 

 constantly warm by the gulf-stream, the water of which not only flows 

 with each tide up the Bristol Channel, but also through the heart of 

 the county by means of the windings of Milford Haven, fully explains 

 this, and caused at that time a mildness of temperature probably un- 

 equalled in these Islands, except on the south coast of Devon and 

 Cornwall. In many places fuchsias standing out of doors had never 

 been cut down by frost within the memory of the inhabitants. Some 

 of them were trees standing from fifteen to twenty feet high, with 

 trunks of the size of a man's leg. One in the garden at AVallaston 

 farm (thought nothing of by its owner) stood by the path where 

 every one walked under it, its lowest branches being barely within 

 reach of a tall man. The handsome shrubby Veronicas, usually green- 

 house plants, had grown in the cottage gardens into great bushes five 

 or six feet high, their abundant blossoms at the end of autumn 

 affording the latest attraction to the Vanessce before retiring to their 

 winter quarters. Myrtles had actually grown old and ugly out of 

 doors, sumachs of many years' growth stood in gai-dens, and it seemed 

 that, but for the hoar frosts of October and November, the Tropoeohims 

 and Pelarcjoniums would have blossomed all the year round. 



During these years, very many insects of general distribution in 

 the United Kingdom, continued to be either very scarce, or confined 

 to exceedingly restricted localities in this district. Of Ai-gynnis 

 Papliia only one or two specimens were seen in each season ; Argi/nnis 

 Aglaia was found only in two or three favourite spots in the wildest of 

 the coast sandhills; of Argynnis Euphrosyne a very few specimens 

 were seen in Canaston Wood, and one on the flank of Prescelly 

 Mountain ; while Argynnis Selene was scarcely to be found at all, ex- 

 cept on a favoured slope of one of the more accessible sea-cliffs. 

 Satyrus hyperanthus was also very local and uncommon, and Safyrvs 

 JEgeria only very sparingly to be seen. Lyaena uSSgon must have 

 existed somewhere, but was not observed in those years at all. Of 

 Bomhyx neusfria I ol^served each year only a few nests on blackthorn 





