THE BRITISH NATURALIST. 



At that time, I resided at Camber well, within an easy walk of 

 Dulwich Wood of 80 acres, to which access was to be had without 

 difficulty ; London, in those days, broke off abruptly, and at four miles 

 from London Bridge, one was as much in the country as if fifty miles 

 distant ; there were rookeries at the Tower, in St. Dunstans Church- 

 yard, and one nest in Wood Street, Cheapside. Swallows had their 

 nests in the Custom House, and I have often seen Falcons on the 

 spire of St. Dunstan's Chuch, one Peregrin Falcon took up its 

 residence in the spire of Shoreditch Church and committed sad havoc 

 among the pigeons in Spital Fields, and it was no unusual thing for 

 my own pigeons at Camberwell, to be suddenly swooped upon by a 

 Falcon. 



My first communication on Entomology was to the " Zoologist," 

 dated 14th June, 1845, on the capture of Ino (Pvocris) globularia, Agvotis 

 cinerea, and Crambus pygmceas at Lewes ; the first mentioned species 

 had been reputed British, but, until I obtained it at Lewes, it had not 

 been proved beyond all doubt to be so. 



From that date to the present time I have occasionally sent contri- 

 butions to the " Zoologist," and more often to the " Entomologist," 

 since 1864, when that magazine, after 22 years incorporation with the 

 " Zoologist," was again divided from it. 



In 1844 I became friendly with Mr. George Bedell and Mr. Douglas, 

 and soon afterwards with the late Mr. H. T. Stainton, whose recent 

 death we are all so much lamenting, these friendships turned my 

 attention towards the study of the Micro-lepidoptera in which we were 

 all at that time deeply interested, and I was able to discover many 

 species new to the British fauna. 



Late in 1844 I first attended a meeting of the Entomological 

 Society and was elected a member in January, 1845 ; this led to my 

 acquaintance with most of the Entomologists of the day, including 

 William Spence, James Frances Stephens, Edward Doubleday, George 

 Newport, Edward Newman, I. O. Westwood, and others, from all 

 these I received the greatest kindness and their assistance is re- 

 membered by me with gratitude. 



For many years I worked most assiduously at the Micro-lepidoptera, 

 but in 1870 I had a sad accident, which resulted in the loss of the top 

 of my left thumb, this quite incapacitated me for the delicate manipu- 

 lation necessary for the setting of those minute insects. 



At the suggestion of Dr. A. R.- Wallace, I undertook, in 1868, a 

 series of experiments on the relation between insects and insectivorous 

 birds, and especially on the relation between the colour and edibility 

 of Lepidoptera and their larvae, my conclusions, on this subject, were 

 embodied in a paper read before the Entomological Society, 1st March, 

 1869, published in the Transactions of that year, and a further paper 



