A NATIONAL SANCTUARY 
5 > 
death. Even the eg.^s ot the butterfly are not exempt from 
foes. They are liable to the attacks of parasites, for a very 
minute ichneumon fly {TcUus clatite) looks upon tliem as 
“ suitable abodes for its future progeny.” Then the perfect 
insect is largely preyed upon by wasps. So that in all four 
stages of its existence the common cabbage-butterfly is subject 
to tlie attacks of such deadly enemies that scarcely one in a 
hundred successfully runs the gauntlet, and lives to propagate 
its species. This seems to me to be the most probable cause 
of the disappearance of the black-veined white. 
When one sees interesting and familiar forms thus vanishing 
before one’s eyes the question seems to arise, what will be the 
next creature to follow in the steps of the great auk or large 
copper butterfly, and, like them, cease to exist ? 
Market Weston, Thetford. Eo.mu.nd Tiios. Daubkny. 
A NATIONAL SANCTUARY: WHAT WOLMER 
FOREST IS DOING FOR OUR BIRD LIFE. 
{^Reprinted by permission from the ‘■'Daily Mail.") 
HE recent slaughter of kingfishers at Bath, as recorded 
in the Daily Mail, for the crime of devouring some 
common gold fish, has again drawn attention to the 
importance of sanctuaries in which birds may be safe 
from their many persecutors ; and the following particulars 
respecting Wolmer Forest, which, by the recent exertions of 
the Guildford Society, has been secured for this purpose, may 
be of interest to naturalists wherever located. 
Wolmer undoubtedly owes its celebrity to the description of 
it by Gilbert White in his delightful Natural History of Selborne, 
otherwise it would have gained no more notoriety than many 
other districts in Surrey and Hampshire, with the natural 
features of which it has much in common. In Gilbert White’s 
time it was a mere undulating sandy waste, covered for the most 
part with gorse, ling and fern, “ without,” as he says, “ having 
one standing tree in the whole extent.” A distinguishing feature 
of it, however, was and still is, the existence of bogs or swamps 
in its hollows. These, produced partly by soakage from the 
hills, and partly by the overflow in rainy weather of certain 
watercourses, are impassable in some places to man or beast, 
and they yield from time to time fossil trees, some being black 
and heavy, resembling oak, while others, lighter in hue, are 
supposed to be pine or willow. The presence of these trunks 
would suggest that formerly a forest existed here, and this is 
believed to have been the case. 
It is supposed that Wolmer formerly was included in the 
vast extent of woody country termed Anderida, which once 
