314 WANDERINGS AND PONDERINGS, &C 



rest of the community. It is the economy of this bee to lay its 

 eggs in the nest of the Anthophora ; the grubs, on hatching, 

 devour the food provided by the Anthophorce for their own 

 young, which, thus deprived of their support, shrivel up and 

 die. 



At length, emerging from the pit, we continued our course 

 along the lane till it opens on Dartford Heath. To the left is 

 Mr. Menett's park, the palings of which are the favourite 

 resort and resting-place of moths : my companion pointed out 

 to me a spot on these palings where he had taken, during the 

 previous September, a fine specimen of Catocala Fraxini, the 

 Clifton nonpareil. Leaving this park directly behind us, we 

 stretched across the heath, bearing rather to the right, and 

 after a sunny, dusty, and, as regards captures, unprofitable 

 walk, we arrived, at four o'clock, at the Fox and Hounds, at 

 Darenth. Kelham, the landlord of the Fox and Hounds, is 

 quite a character : his tall gaunt figure, his toothless mouth, 

 ever on the smile, his broad straw hat, his scarcely intelligible 

 dialect, contribute to render him a man whom, once known, is 

 not easily forgotten. The evening of our arrival at Kelham's 

 was spent in mothing— I cannot now say with what success, 

 but I perfectly recollect that my box, on my return, con- 

 tained many species which, at that time, were quite unknown 

 to me. 



I was not, at the period of which I am writing, a perfect 

 novice in entomology ; " the boy is father of the man," and 

 from my earliest years, I had been a hunter of butterflies; but 

 the taste, during the years of adolescence, had been well nigh 

 dormant, until I quite accidentally met with Mr. Samouelle, in 

 the year 1825. I had never before conversed with any one 

 who possessed so much knowledge of the subject. Mr. Samou- 

 elle, at the very time I became acquainted with him, was 

 engaged in the formation of a social Entomological Society, and 

 I was at once admitted a member. The first meeting of this 

 Society, which I attended, I never shall forget. The slender 

 knowledge I possessed of insects was derived from Berken- 

 hout's "Synopsis," and Marsham's volume on Coleoptera ; 

 but, in the course of conversation, not a single name was 

 mentioned that I had ever read in either of these authors. I 

 was a perfect dummy. I longed for the utterance of one 

 sentence about " Emperors" or " Admirals ,■" then I could have 



