3616 Insects. 



forms, which, in England, have not, it would appear, been elsewhere 

 observed, yet I believe I err not in considering the south-western cor- 

 ner by far the most unprofitable portion of our island for an active 

 entomologist to be stationed in, who is more anxious to obtain good 

 sport as a reward for his labours, than the mere knowledge of local 

 distribution and negative evidence, which, though it be interesting to 

 special observers, for special purposes, is scarcely practical enough to 

 satisfy the daily cravings and the amor habendi of hard-working natu- 

 ralists. Unlike the easy collecting we are accustomed to in the more 

 favoured East, miles of unprofitable country have often to be gone 

 over, be it swampy moorland or iron-bound coast, where scarcely an 

 insect is to be seen ; or, at any rate, where the few which exist are so 

 ordinary, and so sparingly dispersed, as to be scarcely worth the la- 

 bour of obtaining them, more especially since the identical species 

 are many of them to be met with in the utmost profusion in more cen- 

 tral or eastern habitats. Whether it be the moisture of the climate, 

 or the violence of the south-west winds, which, continually sweeping 

 over the high central mass of Devonshire and the bleak, barren downs 

 of Cornwall, present as great an obstacle to the development of ani- 

 mal, as they clearly do of vegetable life, I will not venture to suggest; 

 yet certain it is, from observation, that insects not only become fewer 

 in number in proportion as they are exposed to these external agen- 

 cies of wind and water, but likewise, in many instances, diminish so 

 considerably in stature as to be scarcely reconcileable with the normal 

 types. 



But to proceed to the notice of a few of the captures which I pro- 

 pose to register ; and not confining myself to Devonshire and Corn- 

 wall only, the peculiar poverty of which, entomologically, I have 

 thought it desirable thus far to dilate upon ; I will trace out my line 

 of wandering during the present summer, noting merely such few spe- 

 cies, here and there, as may be considered more especially character- 

 istic of my different centres of research. Commencing then with the 

 neighbourhood of Dorchester, and in conjunction with my friend, the 

 Rev. J. F. Dawson, I again visited the small but remarkable locality 

 of Herringstone (more minutely described by me, ' Zoologist/ 1940), 

 where a succession of springs, issuing out of the chalk hills, form a 

 swampy valley, in winter-time nearly impassable. In one of these 

 springs, in company with Agabus uliginosus, I took a single specimen 

 of the rare Agabus fontinalis, Leach (a species known by a minute 

 tooth on the inner curvature of the front claw), the only other exam- 

 ple that has come under my observation, in British cabinets, having 



