208 THE ENTOMOLOGIST. 



vast head, which overshadows a space of two hundred feet in 

 diameter, was rich with autumnal tints, and, gilded by the 

 setting sun, seemed a mighty painted dome. Sherwood, as 

 described by the matchless pen of Scott, is no fancy sketch, 

 but an accurate picture of the scene. " The sun was 

 setting upon one of the rich grassy glades of the forest ; 

 hundreds of broad-headed, short-stemmed, wide-branched 

 oaks, which had witnessed perhaps the stately march of the 

 Koman soldiery, flung their gnarled arms over a thick carpet 

 of the most delicious greensward ; in some places they were 

 intermingled with beeches, hollies and copsewood of various 

 descriptions, so closely as totally to intercept the level beams 

 of the sinkng sun ; in others they receded from each other, 

 forming those long sweeping vistas, in the intricacy of 

 which the eye delights to lose itself, while imagination con- 

 siders them as the paths to yet wilder scenes of sylvan 

 solitude." ('Ivanhoe'). It needed but the burly form of 

 Friar Tuck to restore the picture of those long-past days ; 

 and truly the jolly clerk of Copmanhurst is not without his 

 modern representative, for on the table of the inn at Edwin- 

 stowe was a bill, left by a previous visitor, in which occurred 

 the following item : — " To six gallons of beer in the Forest." 

 Who he was, or why so thirsty, 1 did not learn. 



Noctuae visited the sugared trees in great numbers. Of 

 Amphipyra pyramidea and other common species the hosts 

 were countless, sometimes three deep, sitting on one another's 

 backs. Omitting species of universal occurrence, the fol- 

 lowing is a list of the insects taken : — 



Cymatophora diluta (very abundant), Hydraecia nictitans 

 (very abundant), Luperina caespitis, Apamea gemina, Noctua 

 glareosa, N. Dahlii, N. neglecta (all three common, the last 

 both red and drab varieties), Charaeas Graminis, Agrotis 

 suffusa, A. agathina, Triphaena ianthina, T. fimbria, T. 

 orbona (all three very common), Neuria Saponariae, Orthosia 

 suspecta (very common), Epunda nigra, Aplecta occulta 

 (seven specimens), Hadcn a Proteus, Stilbia anomala. Of that 

 fine species, Eu])eria fulvago, for which 1 believe Sherwood 

 to be the most ])rolific, if not the only certain English 

 station, nearly three hundred specimens were taken. 

 Its congener, Cosmia tra})ezina, was even more abun- 

 dant. Common everywhere and usually a most variable 



