102 LETTERS TO COLONEL COUSSMAKER [CHAP. xm. 



TORRINGTON HOUSE, ST. ALBANS, 



January 26, 1888. . 



Many thanks for your note received this morning. I shall 

 hope to add some of it to my Turnip Caterpillars paper, 

 which is not yet gone to press. Thank you for the offer 

 of the specimens, but I do not quite see my way to showing 

 live ones yet. My lecture [at the London Farmers' Club] 

 is a terribly anxious prospect to myself, but I can but do 

 my best, and I am endeavouring with the utmost care to 

 form something that may be acceptable, but I am sure you 

 will believe me that to address such a skilled audience is 

 rather anxious work. I should much like to lay before the 

 members of the Club some ideas for their consideration as 



Female, head of male, and caterpillar. 



FIG. 2. WOOD LEOPARD MOTH, ZEUZERA ^SCULf, LINN. 



to how some reasonable amount of plain serviceable infor- 

 mation might be got abroad. I do not believe in all this 

 lecturing, examining and talking of classification. To my 

 thinking it is beginning at the wrong end, and that the 

 learners need first to make sure of their facts in the field 

 and classify them when they have got them, if they do it 

 at all. 



February 17, 1890. 



I have examined your caterpillars carefully, and I find that 

 of the oak stem to correspond exactly with the larva of the 

 Wood leopard moth, the Zeuzera cesculi. This is commonly 

 found in (or at least it is usually sent me from) wood of 

 fruit trees, but it attacks oak as well as forest trees of various 



