124 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 
We cannot well leave this spot without for a moment stopping 
to admire the beautiful view. High in front of us is the broad 
valley of the Thames, with ‘fair Middlesex” at our feet; this is 
backed by the Surrey hills, some twenty-five miles away in the 
distance. One of the first objects which catches the eye is a large 
sheet of water a couple of miles to the right of where we stand. 
This is Ruislip Reservoir, which belongs to the Regent’s Canal 
Company. It is about eighty acres in extent, and is surrounded 
by Ruislip Woods, which seem so extensive that we resolve some 
day to explore them. 
The lane to our right leads back to another part of the woods, 
where, I hear, the bilberry grows; but we must leave that for 
another day, and go down the hill where the road dips between 
high banks and hedges, which should be well examined for 
Tortrices in summer. A little farther on I had this week the 
pleasure of finding the larve of Hbulea stachydalis, one of our 
rarest Pyralides, feeding on the foul-smelling woundwort (Stachys 
sylvatica), which grows in little patches in the hedges on each side 
of the road. This would indicate the possibility of two broods 
annually of that lepidopteron. 
At the bottom of the hill is a guide-post, and opposite to our 
right is a lane with whitethorn hedges of great size, quite twenty 
feet in height. From these the larve of several Tortrices may be 
beaten, as well as that of Hupithecia exiguata. Returning to the 
suide-post, up the Pinner lane, we see to the left a considerable 
wood of larch, spruce, Scotch fir, &c. ‘This should be tried if 
time permits. Continuing along this lane brings us to the high 
road which we left in the morning from the station. But we turn 
a short distance to the right to the ‘ Bell” Inn for refreshment 
before starting for the station, which is about a twenty minutes’ 
walk away. 
The district I have just described seems to have been little 
visited by London, or indeed any, entomologists. I made frequent 
inquiries if butterfly-catchers ever came that way, but none of the 
residents had ever seen them. A policeman volunteered that he 
had never seen one, but frequently “ bird-catchers,’ whom, he 
said, came from Uxbridge. To him the two pursuits seemed 
much akin, and he seemed to look upon either with the same 
amount of respect. 
The soil of the neighbourhood is light clay, gravel, and sand, 
