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Report of the Paul's Cray Common Field Meeting, 

 September 22nd, 1900. 



By Robert Adkin, F.E.S. Read September 2']th, 1900. 



If a fine autumn day be an essential to a successful field meeting 

 we were certainly favoured on Saturday last, September 22nd, when 

 the members met for the fourth outing of the season. A party of 

 about twenty assembled at Cannon Street station shortly after two 

 o'clock, and took train at 2.30 to Chislehurst, and were ultimately 

 joined by others, bringing the total attendance to twenty-four, a very 

 respectable number for so late in the season. 



Taking the main road from the station, and passing under the 

 archway at the top of the hill, the party soon arrived on Chislehurst 

 Common, a pleasant enough looking piece of well-wooded land, that 

 at one time was worthy the attention of the naturalist, but now, un- 

 fortunately, much overrun. It was therefore thought well not to 

 loiter here, so taking the St. Mary Cray and Orpington road past 

 the " Bull's Head," we pushed on to Paul's Cray Common, reached in 

 something under a mile and a half from the railway station. The 

 feature of this common, a feature for which it is justly renowned, is 

 its wealth of birch trees ; they grow all over it, and are of all sizes, 

 from mere saplings to fine stately trees, their slender branches waving 

 in the autumn breeze ; and the ground beneath them is carpeted 

 with heather ( Calluna vulgaris) and bracken {Pteris aquilind), whose 

 varied tints at this time of the year add greatly to the beauty of the 

 scene. No wonder so picturesque a locality should attract numerous 

 picnic parties, as we found was the case on the occasion of our visit ; 

 but, fortunately, one of the necessary adjuncts to these al fresco 

 entertainments, hot water for the brewing of the indispensable tea, 

 is obtainable only at one small cottage on the far side of the common, 

 and there of necessity such parties congregate, leaving the greater 

 part of the common available for those more interested in the lesser 

 objects of nature to wander unmolested at their own sweet will, even 

 on a fine Saturday afternoon ; how much more so on those occasions 

 which, though less attractive to the general public, are perhaps more 

 profitable for the collection of insects ! For it is to this spot that 

 the Londoner journeys on a mild evening in the early part of Novem- 

 ber to obtain his series of Chematobia boreata ; and if he be fortunate 

 in hitting upon a favourable night he should have no difficulty in 

 completing not only his own series of the species, but those of all 

 his friends into the bargain, by searching the birch trees with a lan- 

 tern, and will d(jubtless meet with many other late species while 

 so engaged. Earlier in the year Macaria notata may be taken from 

 the same trees, while they and the heather beneath them are attrac- 



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