CHAPTER VIII 



BEGINNING THE STUDY OF ENTOMOLOGY, COLLECTIONS OF 

 ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGICAL SPECIMENS, AND FAMILY 

 DISPERSAL. 



So far as a date can be given to what has been the absorbing 

 interest of the work of my life, the i2th of March, 1852, 

 would be about the beginning of my real study of Ento- 

 mology. I fancy I attended to it more than I knew myself, 

 for little things come back to memory connected with 

 specimens being brought to me to name or look at, one in 

 particular regarding a rare locust. The date was some time 

 before coaches were discontinued, and the usual gathering 

 of people in those days had collected at the door of the 

 George Hotel in Chepstow to see the coach change horses, 

 when, to the astonishment of all, a fine rose-underwinged 

 locust appeared amongst them. Chepstow is on a steep hill, 

 and the " George" about half a mile from the bridge (pi. xvn.). 

 Down the hill set off the locust, pursued by a party from 

 the George, until it was captured at the bridge, and our 

 family doctor conveyed it alive and uninjured to me. On 

 my father sending it up to Oxford to Professor Daubeney 

 as a probable curiosity, he identified it as being the first 

 of the kind which had been taken so far west. If he 

 gave us the name, I have forgotten it. In March I began 

 my studies by buying my first entomological book, and 

 I chose beetles for the subject, and Stephens's " Manual 

 of British Beetles " J for my teacher. Those who know the 

 book will understand my difficulties. It has no illustrations, 

 glossary, nor convenient abstracts to help beginners, and, if 

 such things existed in those days, they were not accessible 

 to me. But I made up my mind that I was going to learn, 

 and as palpi, maxillce, and names of all the smaller parts of 



1 Manual of British Coleoptera, or Beetles, published by Longmans, 

 Green & Co., 1839. In Miss Ormerod's copy is a pencil note : 

 "J.F. S., died 1853." 



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