28 WANDERINGS AND PONDERINGS 



little scarlet frog-hopper, Cercopis vulnerata, I entered a 

 chalk-pit, a very little chalk-pit, but a very productive one ; 

 here I took among other insects that pleased me exceedingly, 

 a whole row of the brilliant beetle Cryptocephalus lineola, 

 and from a dead snake I procured a multitude of carrion- 

 beetles of all sorts and sizes. I reached Greenhithe as the 

 sun was setting, and procured the needful restoratives. 



Greenhithe is a remarkable place: its immense chalk-pits 

 strike the beholder with wonder; what labour must there 

 not have been in the excavation! a town of considerable 

 magnitude, with its churches, tall spires, and stately towers, 

 might be concealed therein from the passer by. As it is, 

 numerous cottagers have settled there, have fenced in their 

 garden, and cultivated fields of corn. The view over these 

 pits from above, the precipitous steepness and the tortuous 

 margin of their banks, and the broad Thames flowing beyond 

 them, cannot fail to arrest the notice and attract the admiration 

 of the most cursory beholder, while their contents amply repay 

 the entomologist. The finest view is from the corner nearest 

 to Gravesend, almost close to the turnpike-road. Crossing 

 the road at this spot, into a scrubby, bushy kind of meadow, 

 you are on the almost sole locality within many miles of 

 London of the spider orchis, Ophrys aranifera ; it is every 

 year found here in the early spring, but botanists have pursued 

 it with such vigour that it is now nearly exterminated. In the 

 chalk-pits Ophrys anthropophora, and many other Orchidece, 

 are very abundant. 



Chapter II. 



[The Insect-Hunter at Paris; he visiteth the Jardin du Roi; he commenteth 

 thereon ; he returneth to England by night, and pondereth by the way.] 



In London the collector of insects is supposed, at least by 

 the many, to be insane : in Paris it is quite the reverse — he 

 is considered a philosopher. The Insect-Hunter was not only 

 respected, but met with every assistance. The year had 

 moved onwards ; it was September ; and Lathonia was flying 

 in swarms in that most elegant, most sentimental, most tasty, 



