78 



THE YOUNG 



NATURALIST. 



showy plant it has attained wonderfully 

 little repute in rustic medicine. The 

 bulbs of snowdrop are emetic, and yet 

 mice are very fond of them, and will 

 greedily devour them whenever they 

 are accessible. 



ENTO M O LOGICAL 

 LOCALITIES, 

 No. 2. 



THE "BRUSHES" STALYBRIDGE. 

 Supplementary Paper 

 By John S. White. 



I thought a few further remarks, supple- 

 menting Mr. Gregson's paper (page 57), 

 as it is, and has been of late years, since I 

 found out the place, might prove of interest 

 to some of your readers. I never knew the 

 Brushes as the old collectors knew it, for 

 the valley had been dammed up in several 

 places to form reservoirs for the supply of 

 water to some of the surrounding towns, 

 when I came to live in this neighbourhood, 

 and all the consequent improvements, such 

 as forming good roadways, building stone 

 boundary walls, fencing, &c., were nearly 

 completed, and the old pathways and tracks 

 were nearly all done away with, and very 

 little of the brook course remains to be 

 seen, and to get to it you must trespass ; 

 and if you will collect at the Brushes now 

 you are obliged to trespass and chance being 

 walked off by gamekeepers and waterworks 

 officials. There are two houses built on 

 the hillside, part way up the valley, which 

 overlook the valley for a good distance each 

 way ; and if you happen to get on the 

 ground without being noticed, and make 

 your way up the valley to come out on the 

 open moor at the top, you come in sight of 



another house, built for the manager of the 

 waterworks : so you are almost certain to 

 get trapped in some part of your ramble. 

 Last year Mr. Chappell of Manchester, Mr. 

 Ward of Dickinfield, and myself, managed 

 to get down to the brook course and began 

 to search the moss on the stones and the 

 little waterfalls for what v/e could find in 

 the beetle line. Being a nice retired place, 

 we sat down behind a rock, quite out of 

 sight from the road, and began to eat what 

 little food we had brought with us ; but no 

 sooner had we settled down than we were 

 surrounded by four men who kept trying to 

 persuade us that we had no right there, and 

 they walked us away at once, and put us on 

 the road that we did not care to see quite 

 so soon. However, there is a bit of collect- 

 ing ground at the "Brushes" proper, that 

 is, amongst the little oak-trees, &c., where I 

 have never been ordered away, and here is 

 the best place for " sugaring ; " but as I am 

 a working man collector, I cannot afford the 

 time requisite for this mode of collecting ; 

 that is, I cannot stay in bed in the morning 

 until I am sufficiently refreshed after a 

 night's sugaring at the Brushes. The trains 

 are very inconvenient as to time, and it is a 

 long and lonely walk home to Droylsden, 

 When I came to live here I know from 

 " Stainton's Manual " that the Brushes was 

 the head quarters for Cloantha solidaginis, so 

 I determined to try and find the place, 

 which I did after many enquiries on the 

 way. I had seen in the •' Zoologist," &c., 

 that Solidaginis had been taken at rest on 

 stone walls and on fir-trees — there are no 

 fir-trees at the Brushes, but plenty of ston6 

 walls. At this time I did not know the 

 insect, and had not become acquainted with 

 any collectors, so that I had all to find out 

 as best I could. So one Saturday afternoon 

 I went on to Manchester, to the Natural 

 History Museum, to see what the insect was 

 like, and I was greatly disappointed at not 

 finding it represented. This was the sole 



