THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



No. 85.] DECEMBER, MDCCCLXX. [Price 6d. 



Sherwood Forest. By Edwin Birchall, Esq. 



T send you a notice of captures made in Sherwood Forest, 

 during a visit of two days, in August last. Sherwood lies 

 between Retford and Mansfield, and, although of much less 

 extent than formerly, great tracts of ancient woodland, 

 studded with thousands of venerable trees, still remain ; and 

 I believe in no part of England can forest scenery be seen in 

 equal perfection. The district surrounding the little village of 

 Edwinstowe especially retains its original wildness, and the 

 insects referred to in this paper were all captured in that 

 neighbourhood. 



The country is gently undulating in character ; the 

 northern portion lies on the magnesian limestone formation, 

 the southern on the new red sandstone ; both usually very 

 rich in insect life. 



The weather was not favourable for day-flying insects, and 

 only seven species of Diurni were observed. Vanessa 

 C-Album has been taken abundantly in the forest, and 

 Apatura Iris occasionally, but I did not see either species. 

 Larva-hunting and pupa- digging produced but small and 

 rather unsatisfactory results, and the morning hours were 

 pretty much spent wandering through the grand old forest, 

 so rich in memories of English history and romance, beneath 

 trees which may have sheltered those heroes of our child- 

 hood, Robin Hood and Coeur-de-Lion, or even that greatest 

 of English kings the first Edward, with whom Sherwood was 

 a favourite hunting-ground. 



The timber is principally oak and birch, bilberry and 

 bracken. The tree known as "the major odk" is perhaps 

 the largest in the forest ; it is thirty feet in circumference 

 at its least girth, at the level of the ground upwards of fifty 

 feet, and a dozen men might stand in its hollow interior : 

 this giant tree, to which we may not improperly assign an 

 age of one thousand years, is still growing vigorously; its 



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