21 



Desultory Days at Dawlish. 



By H. J. Turner, F.E.S. Read JVovetnber 22fid, 1900. 



Some years ago, when going down to Penzance, I made a mental 

 note that I would at a future time visit that beautiful portion of 

 Devonshire where the Great \Vestern Railway is the boundary line 

 between land and sea. Brunei, the great engineer, said that he 

 would make one of the most beautiful rides in England, and certainly 

 that portion of the railway from Starcross through Dawlish and 

 Teignmouth to Newton Abbot, running along the shores of the rivers 

 Exe and Teign and the sea, is a lovely ride, particularly in the early 

 morning. Of these places Dawlish seemed the most attractive. It 

 was secluded, there was an absence of the Ramsgate or Brighton 

 element, there were elevated coigns of vantage, there was the sea 

 with beach and sand, but without the niggers and such like pests, 

 and above all, to an entomologist, there was the chance of per 

 sonally becoming acquainted with a brilHant rarity, viz. Callimorpha 

 hera. 



This paper is styled " Desultory Days," and certainly, although 

 I always carried an old net about with me, only on one day did I 

 devote my whole time to collecting, and on that occasion I took 

 no less than nineteen "Tigers." The only species which I worked 

 at continuously was Bryophila imtraHs, and that was only in the 

 early morning, from 5.30 a.m. to about 7. No night work was 

 attempted, although, from what my friend Mr. Jager has told, such 

 collecting, if persevered in in that neighbourhood, is very productive. 

 The number of insects collected was less than four hundred, of which 

 the two species mentioned contributed more than half. I do not 

 think I took a single specimen at more than a mile from the sea, and 

 not more than four miles along the Starcross side of Dawlish, and 

 two miles along the Teignmouth side. 



The most attractive spots for collecting are the lovely lanes, long, 

 deep, with wide banks and hedges, most varied in vegetation, and 

 teeming with insect life. Then there is the Ladies' Walk, an elevated 

 green ride above the cliffs of about a mile long, leading to the 

 Warren, the sandy spit of land quite another mile in length, and half 

 a mile broad, lying across the mouth of the Exe towards Exmouth 

 and where a very different class of collecting is afforded. Then there 

 are the beautiful woods about Cofton, where Rev. A. Benthall, 

 who has given us many notes on C. hera, lives ; and still further 

 towards Starcross are the low, marshy meadows, no doubt productive 

 of an extensive and peculiar insect fauna. In the other direction 

 towards Teignmouth I only went once, exploring a few lanes and 

 meadows, and finally going down the lovely gorge known as 



