136 BIRD HAUNTS AND NATURE MEMORIES 



At last, for the price of a drink, he disclosed the locality, 

 but either the information was incorrect or the stock had 

 been exterminated; the eager collectors who hurried to 

 the spot, to the very tree, failed to find a single larva, 

 pupa, or moth. More liquor loosened his tongue, and he 

 admitted that the moths had been left in pawn against 

 his score at a low beer-house, but when the searchers 

 investigated they were met with the disquieting informa- 

 tion from the landlady that, thinking the " flies " of no 

 value and that they would never be reclaimed, she had 

 " stuck the box behind the fire." (Ecophora woodiella 

 (Curtis) has never been seen since. Three specimens 

 remain : two were in the Manchester Museum, but one of 

 these is now in the British Museum, and the third, the one 

 Curtis named and figured, is in Australia. The fifty or 

 sixty others which were taken about 1840 on Kersal 

 Moor perished in the flames. 



Yet another, a true naturalist at heart but not always 

 accurate, was my first taxidermist. Ducks, gulls, and 

 waders, sometimes song birds, purchased in the market, 

 or the victims of the uncertain aim of my boyhood's gun, 

 were " put into skin " for me, their necks often woefully 

 stretched, their bodies bloated by too much tow; but until 

 I could make a skin for myself all my spare cash passed 

 into his hands. Many were his stories of the " pot- 

 hunting " fraternity, mouching along the hedgerows 

 with a gun, men who shot for " sport," but who traded 

 any good species they obtained. Many a rare migrant 

 or accidental wanderer passed through his unskilful hands. 

 He would give me specimens of snakes and lizards, 

 fresh- water sponges, or rare plants. He was a constant 

 reader of the popular natural history journals that 

 flourished in those days, but he did not write himself. 

 Later he became poetical, and many a doggerel verse, 

 recalling days gone past, has been penned for me. He 



