THE INSECTS OF CAMBRIDGESHIRE. 



INTRODUCTION. 

 BY WM FARREN. 



CAMBRIDGESHIRE, although small, possesses a remarkably 

 rich and varied Entomological fauna, due to a considerable 

 variety of country being included in the long straggling shape 

 of the county. 



Of real fen-land very little remains; the whole of the 

 northern part of the county, the centre of that large tract 

 of Fens which extends into north Huntingdonshire, Lincoln- 

 shire, Norfolk and Suffolk, has been reclaimed, and is now, 

 with the exception of small isolated parts, agricultural 

 land of a somewhat uninteresting character, at least from 

 the entomologist's point of view. The Fens of Horningsea, 

 Bottisham, Swatfham, and Burwell, immediately north of 

 Cambridge, have also been reclaimed in the last thirty 

 or forty years, and although a semi-wild state is maintained 

 in parts where turf-digging is carried on, the greater part 

 is cultivated land, and but few of the interesting insects 

 which were to be found there in the middle of last century 

 remain. About 300 acres of sedge fen at Wicken alone 

 survives in something of its original state; a succession of 

 bad hay seasons has however raised the value of sedge and 

 such rough fodder as the Fen produces, and a considerable 

 amount of cutting has been done, to facilitate which a lot of 

 bushes have been "stubbed" up. Against this stands the 

 fact that several naturalists have purchased portions of the 

 Fen with the object of preserving it in its original state, and 



