156 



THE YOUNG NATURALIST. 



work, and how anxious I was to know the 

 composition of that mixture with which he 

 besmeared the trees for moths. I tried 

 various ridiculous compounds, one of 

 which I remember, was vinegar and gum 

 arabic. 



Varley had always a mortal hatred of 

 the drink traffic, although not himself a 

 teetotaler ; and justly believed that the study 

 of natural history prevented young men from 

 spending their time at public houses, race 

 courses or betting rings. He was therefore 

 ever ready to encourage those who had the 

 slightest love for nature, and made some 

 true converts. One which I think might be 

 placed to his credit was a weaver, most of 

 whose earnings being spent in drink, he was 

 sunk in poverty, and his wife and family 

 starved. But he was brought to a love of 

 nature, and became a sober man, taking an 

 onion in his pocket when out on his rambles 

 to act the part which a pint (or more) of 

 ale had done previously. Hand-loom weavers 

 had then only poor wages, and if he had 

 any play he was soon out of spare cash. On 

 one such occasion he wished to go 

 " sugaring'' for moths, but having neither 

 treacle, rum, nor money he was in a fix. 

 However, he remembered they had had 

 some mint-sauce to their Sunday dinner, so 

 he took some of the mint-sauce and 



sugared" his trees, and actually caught 

 some moths, as he said, with his new 

 decoction. 



Varley's favourite insect was DasypoUa 

 templi. The district about Huddersfield is 

 very hilly, and upon many of the peaks are 

 quarries and loose stones. On the highest 

 and bleakest of these places the insect flies 

 in October and November, and hides by 

 day under the loose stones. Up to these 

 points, particularly to Denby and Cheese- 

 gate Nab, he has gone time after time. 

 Even so late as the Autumn of 1880, when 

 the insect was more than usually abundant, 

 he made several journeys to the latter place, 



and obtained a good supply of the moth. In 

 that same year in the month of November. 

 Messsrs. Robson, Mosley, and Varley in an 

 afternoon stroll each found one D. templi, 

 and the three are now in the first gentleman's 

 cabinet, as a remembrance of the first, and 

 alas the last time the three met in company, 

 From 1865 to 1868 Varley was in correspon- 

 dence with Mr. Doubleday, and sent him 

 many specimens of D. templi, and through 

 him Dr. Staudinger, Mons. BeUier de la 

 Chavignieu, Guenee, Milliere, A. de Grosbin, 

 Dr. Lengsterm, of Finland, N. Russia, and 

 others. All these gentleman have been 

 supplied with the insect from Cheesegate 

 Nab, many of them succeeded in breeding 

 it, and the latter found it among stones in 

 Finland. 



Varley also sent to Mr. Doubleday, and 

 through him to the continental entomolo- 

 gists, large quantities of specimens and eggs 

 of L. multistrigaria, then considered a good 

 insect. In one of Mr. Doubleday's letters, 

 dated March loth, 1868, he says: — "I re- 

 ceived a box of Lepidoptera yesterday from 

 my kind friend, M. Milliere, of Cannes: 

 among them were two males and a female 

 of the supposed variety of our multistrigaria, 

 1 had never seen this insect before. It 

 appears in November and December at 

 Cannes, where there is usually no winter. 

 I think that it is distinct from our moth, it 

 is much greyer in colour, the markings are 

 very indistinct, and the dots on the margins 

 of the wings are not in pairs as they are in 

 multistrigaria. 



Varley seems to have sought for informa- 

 tion about the distinctness of Bomhyx quercus, 

 and calluncB, in which Mr. Doubleday was a 

 firm believer. In his reply dated November 

 16, 1865, he says : — " I consider the male 

 and female which you have sent me, to 

 : belong to the form called calluna, as do all 

 the northern specimens I have seen. I do 

 not remember whether I sent you a 

 speciman of our quercus in youjr bp??, but I 



