414 
THE EFFICACY OF TRENCHING. 
When a schoolboy in Germany, I found it 
impossible, from the veneration and scruples 
of the villagers, to rob a stork's nest for a 
zoological friend, who wanted a couple of eggs 
for his collection. The turkey's egg is of 
about the same size and form ; therefore, 
rather than disappoint him, I availed myself 
of this knowledge to practise a mischievous 
hoax upon him, which 1 have often since re- 
pented, as he attached much importance to his 
acquisition." 
" The scarcity of many of the varieties of 
the sphingidae may be attributed in some 
degree to the great destruction which attends 
them in their pupal state. Burying them- 
selves beneath the ground, to undergo that 
change in their existence before they emerge 
in their perfect state, they fall victims to the 
prejudice and ignorance of the working-classes, 
who consider them as ' maggots.' Knowing 
of the existence of some of the Sphinx atropos 
in a particular potato field, from the larva? 
having been seen in it, I particularly enjoined 
the labourers, when digging up the crop, to 
save for me "the large brown maggots." 
They collected some six or eight, and assured 
me that they had often found them abundantly, 
and crushed them. 
"In the autumn of 1843 (September,) I 
was looking on at a man cutting down the 
grass on the borders of the Basingstoke canal, 
and before I was aware of it, he trod under 
foot a beautiful larva of the Sphinx elpenor, 
which he declared and believed to be a slow 
worm, to which indeed it bears a slight re- 
semblance. By watching and offering him a 
small reward, I succeeded in obtaining two 
other specimens, probably the only remaining 
ones, as the man told me he had killed several 
others. The privet moth is the most common 
of the sphingida?, because it is less exposed to 
destruction. It feeds in its caterpillar state 
on the leaves of the shrub from which it takes 
its name ; and goes beneath the ground at or 
near the root of the shrub, which ground 
being rarely or never disturbed, the insect 
passes through its several transformations in 
security. They are also less liable to be trod- 
den under foot as larva?, like others of the 
family which feed on low and graminous 
plants. 
" In fir woods, where the surface of the 
ground is clear and divested of underwood, a 
great quantity of pupa? of some of the rarest 
lepidoptera?, besides coleopterous insects in a 
state of hybernation, may be found in the 
winter by peeling up the moss which covers 
the ground. I pursued this system with great 
success, in the large fir woods in the neigh- 
bourhood of Frankfort, collecting thus many 
specimens which I had never before met with, 
and particularly some of the rarer ceramby- 
cida? and the Sphinx pinastri. The pupa? of 
all the lepidoptera which I found came forth 
indiscriminately throughout the winter, from 
the great heat of the rooms. 
" The readiest way to ascertain the presence 
of a caterpillar (particularly of sphingida?) on 
any shrub or plant, is to look out for their 
castings on the ground, and the larva? may 
then be easily detected." 
Of reading like this there is abundance, and 
the volume is, to all intents and purposes, all 
it pretends to be, — the Note Book of a Natu- 
ralist, and an observing one. 
THE EFFICACY OF TRENCHING. 
It has been often objected, that if the sub- 
soil of a garden is hungry, poor stuff, it ought 
not to be brought to the top by trenching ; 
but few greater mistakes are made than that 
of leaving a bad subsoil undisturbed. It is 
perhaps the Avorst possible advice to give in 
some cases, if by trenching the gardener will 
only understand the ordinary process of putting 
the top spit of good soil at the bottom, and 
bringing up the bottom spit of bad soil to the 
top ; but the quality of the top and bottom 
soil ought to decide how the trenching is to 
be performed. For instance, let us take the 
worst possible state of ground for the trench- 
ing operation — bad, poor, sour soil, w r hich in 
its present state will grow nothing well. A 
little of it might be brought to the top every 
time the earth is dug, because exposing even 
bad soil to the atmosphere will improve it; 
and if good ground reached only ten or a dozen 
inches down, this, when we begin to dig, 
must be removed one trench wide for the first 
operation, for the purpose of filling in the last 
left trench. This being removed for a start, 
in ordinary digging, the next spit dug all 
along would fill it up, and the ground would 
be merely turned over ; but before we go at 
the second spit, it would be wise to dig up 
the bottom and leave it there ; for next to 
bringing it to the top, loosening it at the 
bottom is best ; but taking out about two 
inches, to put on the top of the good soil 
will be found an excellent mode of improving 
the ground permanently. Then dig the second 
spit along the space to be trenched, and throw 
it into the trench ; loosen the bottom again, 
and throw two inches of the stuff on the top 
of the good soil ; continue this all through, 
one trench after another, until it is all finished, 
and the result will be, that this small quantity 
of worthless stuff will become, by the dressing 
and the exposure, workable and useful. In 
time two more inches might be brought up, 
and when it had become well mixed and amal- 
gamated with the better soil, and the dung 
which is from time to time put on it, the soil 
