CHAP. XL] SKETCH BY THE EDITOR 77 



Entomology. My reply was " about thirty years," to which 

 he had nothing further to say. There was a slight de- 

 parture from the serious nature of the interview when a 

 parcel of Daddy longlegs grubs which had been placed 

 on the table, gave way, and the creatures crawled all over 

 the place. The final result was, that I agreed to take the 

 post of Consulting Entomologist, but I returned home very 

 uneasy in mind and wrote the same evening that I did 

 not wish to accept office. I was, however, pressed into 

 acceptance at the first business meeting and the first work I 

 undertook was the making of drawings to form originals 

 for six diagrams illustrating some common injurious 

 insects with life histories and methods of prevention. 1 

 This would be the first Tuesday of June, 1882, and I 

 inaugurated my position on the way home by meeting 

 with a severe accident at Waterloo Station, from the 

 results of which I have never recovered. While doubt- 

 less rather preoccupied, crossing the road, a rapid incline 

 from Waterloo Road to the station, I did not notice a 

 carriage coming down the slope till the horses' heads \vere 

 over mine. With no time to run or turn, I sprang and 

 landed on the pavement, but a sharp pain set in, in the 

 muscle above one knee. Whether it originated from a 

 strain or a blow I never knew, but a little flask I carried 

 on the injured side was beaten in as if by a horse's foot 

 or the point of a carriage pole. The injury was not 

 properly attended to and the affected part gradually 

 increasing and spreading gave rise to the lameness 

 accompanied with severe and frequently intermittent pain 

 which necessitated exceeding quiet and bodily inacti- 

 vity a state of matters which was in marked contrast to 

 the extremely active life I had led in my early years 

 rambling in the country, and latterly by indulging in the 

 mechanical in addition to the usual aesthetical pleasures of 

 gardening." 



She explains in a letter to Dr. Fletcher, dated August 22, 

 1892 (p. 212) that she was driven by failing health to resign 

 her honorary official work and to concentrate her energies 

 upon her private work, which steadily increased in volume, 

 and especially on the work of her Annual Report. 



A conception of the interesting methods adopted by Miss 

 Ormerod in carrying out her work may be gleaned from her 



1 Details were given in a letter to Colonel Coussmaker of August i, 

 1885, p. 99. 



