10 
EARLY REMINISCENCES 
the capture of Eupisteria heparata in the alder groves of Coombe 
Wood, and the finding of eighteen larvae of Orgyia gonostigma on 
Wimbledon Common. 1 These beautiful caterpillars were wont 
proudly to stretch themselves out on the oak bushes in the hollow 
below the Windmill, usually on the topmost leaf. In those days 
I was a very small boy for my age, and yet they were well within 
my reach. Is the creature really extinct there ? or are the larvae, 
protected by their many brushes, 2 still wont to sun themselves on 
the tops of the trees far above the heads of the tallest man ? Eor 
be it known that since the reign of the Conservators began, in 1872, 
the whole aspect of the common has greatly changed, as they very 
promptly put a stop to the old practice of “ lopping and topping,” 
with the result that in a few years what had been scrub grew into 
the present beautiful woods. In the old days that I am writing of 
—full forty years ago—there was a clear view from Tibbett’s Corner 
to the Windmill, nothing intervening save a wide expanse of 
heather, and a few small birch bushes. That, however, was before 
the Volunteers and the numerous camp-followers had had time to 
crush the life out of the heather. But if we have lost much heath 
we have gained many trees, so that if Jerry Abershaw still swung 
in chains on Jerry’s Hill, as he did in Jacob Faithful’s boyhood, 
he would not be visible to the motorists on the Portsmouth Road hard 
by. Sad to relate in the course of modern improvements even the 
stump of the gibbet has disappeared, and if Captain Marryat were 
to-day to start to walk from his father’s house at Wimbledon to 
Roehampton 3 he would miss one of his chief “ leading marks.” 
Another landmark, the yet more prominent Admiralty semaphore, 
is now remembered by the “ Telegraph Arms,” erected almost on 
the site. 
The next year, 1865, found me at Rugby, and my collecting was 
restricted to the then long midsummer holidays. This was not, 
however, altogether a loss, for at Rugby I was well grounded in 
Botany, Geology, and Chemistry. The first two sciences at any rate 
have intimate relations with other branches of Natural History, and 
so long as life lasts I shall be grateful to Mr. F. E. Kitchener and 
1 Entomologist's Monthly Magazine , Vol. i. p. 72. 
2 For the protection afforded to the caterpillars of this group by their tussocks of 
hair, see Poulton’s “ The Colours of Animals,” p. 196-8. 
3 Joseph Marryat, M.P., purchased “ Wimbledon House ” in 1815, and died 
there in 1824. Jerry Abershaw was hanged at Kennington on August 3rd, 1795. 
The Rev. Bloomfield Jackson says that the post of the gibbet was long preserved as 
a portion of Mr. Bull’s shop at 27, High St., Putney. I owe this information to 
Mr. C. T. Davis, the accomplished Wandsworth Librarian. 
