308 WANDERINGS AND PONDERINGS 



After this field, or orchard, we pass through a belt of under- 

 wood, principally Spanish chestnut, to a large plantation of 

 Scotch and larch firs, on the trunks of which, if carefully 

 examined, may be found a variety of moths. The various 

 species of Alois and Boarmia are most abundant, each in its 

 appointed season. Achatia piniperda I have also frequently 

 found half hidden in the cracks of the bark. It is necessary 

 to thin these plantations as the trees increase in size : the 

 whole plantation is surveyed, a portion of the trees marked, 

 and, with the axe, cut down close to the ground. On the 

 stumps, immediately after the fall of the tree, will be found 

 specimens of Hylobius abietis, and Hylurgus piniperda, and 

 ater. When the stumps have rotted, and become touch- 

 wood, they will be found to contain vast numbers of Rhagium 

 bifasciatum, in the various stages of larva, pupa, and imago, and 

 if a young oak has shared in the periodical condemnation, its 

 decaying stump will be found to contain Rhagium vulgare. 

 Both these Rhagia may be beaten, in abundance, from the 

 blossom of the whitethorn and holly. Beneath the fir-trees, 

 the grass, which is long, abounds in minute Diptera and 

 parasitic Hy/nenoptera, and the fungi are most productive of 

 Coleoptera. The Agarici produce Oxyporus rufus, and 

 other rare Staphylinites ; the Boleti produce Agathidia and 

 Staphylinites, and the Lycoperdmes, which are abundant, 

 almost invariably contain Lycoperdina bovistce. 



Leaving this plantation, we pass through a thicket containing 

 a number of juniper-trees and seedling firs: on these junipers 

 I first discovered the beautiful Acanthosoma picta, one of the 

 most splendid British insects of the order Cimicites ; it abounds 

 here in March and the beginning of April, and is again met 

 with in August and September. A species of Perilampus 

 inhabits the same trees, and is readily beaten from them into a 

 folding-net, the only way in which the Acanthosoma has been 

 taken. Beyond this thicket the wood is composed principally 

 of oak-trees, with an abundant undergrowth of hazel, birch, 

 dogwood, whitethorn, &c. 



A portion of this undergrowth is cut down close to the 

 ground, every year, and converted into hoops, and faggots, 

 and hurdles, by which means the wood presents a diversity of 

 growth ; a plot of a few acres being quite bare, while on one 

 side of it another plot has a year's growth, and on the other 



