140 The Insects of Cambridgeshire 



this, with the almost Insurmountable difficulties to be en- 

 countered in draining, makes it very unlikely that any further 

 changes will take place in the near future; Wicken con- 

 tains much of the old Fen flora and insert fauna, hut hears 

 a poor resemblance to what the more northern Fenland, with 

 its vast meres and reed beds, was like. Everything is so 

 condensed, and the collecting of insects made so easy by 

 professional attendance near at hand, that it might more 

 aptly be termed an entomological nursery ! 



On the extreme west of the county the Fens are lost a few 

 miles south of the river Ouse, and the boundary is dove-tailed 

 into those of south Huntingdonshire and Bedfordshire, adding 

 to the Cambridgeshire fauna a rich share of the produce of the 

 woods of those counties. Here are the woods and heaths 

 near Gamlingay, so often mentioned by Jenyns and the old 

 .collectors. In the south commences that extensive line of 

 chalk-hills from north Hertfordshire and Essex, which running 

 in a north-easterly direction along the edge of the Fen country 

 immediately north of Cambridge to Burwell, Fordham and 

 Newmarket, covers nearly the whole of the south and south- 

 east of the county, and is very rich in chalk-frequenting 

 insects. Five miles north of Newmarket, separated from the 

 lower Fen country by some comparatively high land where the 

 Fens are bounded by the " Breck sands " of north-west Suffolk, 

 is Chippenham Fen; this has been preserved for game for 

 a number of years, and the Fen is surrounded and crossed 

 by plantations of mixed trees which vary the Fen fauna 

 considerably with woodland species. Here occur many of the 

 Wicken insects, and other Fen species not to be found there, 

 such as Plusia chryson and Baitkia aryrntula among the 

 Lepidoptera. 



East and north of Chippenham we get a narrow piece of 

 the "Breck" in Cambridgeshire, sullicient to add to our 

 Lepidopterous fauna ])'mntlnnr'nt- irmitilurix, Agrophila tru- 

 Ix'nli*, Acidalin rubiginato, and other species peculiar to 

 that district, including some which are otherwise coast species 

 ix /vx/ ///////. s-, and Litn semidicandrella. 



