The TOUHS HAT8BAMST: 



A Monthly Magazine of Natural History. 



Part 88. NOVEMBER, 1886. Vol. 7. 



NOTES ON A HOLIDAY IN SUFFOLK. 



By F. N. PIERCE, Vice-President, Lancashire and Cheshire 

 Entomological Society. 



IN the first place, perhaps, the title of niy paper* is rather vague, for I 

 certainly do not pretend to have collected in the whole of Suffolk, but 

 in one little corner, round about Blaxhall, a few miles from Wickham Market, 

 that being the nearest station. At this station I arrived on Saturday, 26th 

 June, about 8 p.m. ; and as I had started from Liverpool about 10 a.m., I 

 had had enough of the luxurious third-class carriages, provided by half-a- 

 dozen railway companies, and was glad to find the trap of my friend Mr. 

 Rope waiting to convey me to my destination. This proved to be the most 

 lovely cottage about that part, and Mrs. Smith, the good hostess, might have 

 been used to the eccentric ways of entomologists all her life, so well did she 

 look after my comforts. Here I left my apparatus, and getting in the trap 

 again was quickly driven to Mr. Rope's fine old country house, covered with 

 roses and creepers. There was a lovely flower garden, containing some 

 large Syringa bushes, which were attractive to moths ; attached to the gar- 

 den was an orchard, and a plantation of no mean extent, that would make 

 any lover of nature speechless with delight. Picture a plantation where 

 everything is left to nature, and only aided by the proprietor in making it 

 really natural. No finely trimmed edges here, with straight monotonous lines, 

 and walks that remind one of a house floor, but rugged paths, with rough 

 banks of si one, over which the beautiful blue and white Periwinkle grow as 

 they think best ; wild wood flowers at every step, and curious trees, including 

 the extraordinary Butcher's Broom, which grows wild in the district, the 

 flower of which grows from the centre of its prickly leaf. At the bottom of 

 the plantation was a small duck pond, and growing in the middle was an 

 enormous Royal fern, the finest specimen 1 have ever seen. Nor can I finish 



* Read at a meeting of the Lancashire and Cheshire Entomological Society. 



