6 
EARLY REMINISCENCES 
a scientific society that I attended. Curiously enough, when forty 
years afterwards I was admitted as a fellow of the Society of 
Antiquaries, the chair was occupied by Lord Avebury. It is still 
more curious that on that occasion I found on the table a volume of 
the newly published “ Victoria History of the County of Warwick,” 
and therein came across many quotations from my list of the Rugby 
Lepidoptera, printed in 1868 ! 
In August, 1858, though not ten years old, I went up the Rhine 
with my parents, and still remember my excitement on seeing a 
Scarce Swallow-tail swoop round our party when sitting on the 
top of the Drachenfels. I have also a lively recollection of pursuing 
red- and blue-winged grasshoppers among the Bobinia bushes on 
Rolandseck. In those early days, however, it would have seemed to 
me almost criminal to bring a Continental specimen into England, 
moreover for several years I kept to a stern resolve to admit to my 
collection none save insects captured by my own hands. Both 
principles are perhaps good for beginners, but, be that as it may, I 
can to this day realize my feeling of moral degradation, when, 
yielding to persuasion in the cause of science, I first consented to 
exchange specimens (Christmas, 1867). Naturally the new policy 
increased my knowledge, widened my circle of entomological ac¬ 
quaintances and tended to the filling of my cabinet. 
It was in that same summer of 1858 that, in the hotel garden at 
Koblenz, my brother showed me Donati’s comet, then insignificant 
enough, but the first of those weird bodies that I had set eyes upon. 
The wine-growers of the Rhine-land were full of hope and told 
grandfathers’ stories of the famous vintage of 1811—the last great 
comet year. My father joined in the conversation, relating his boyish 
memories of the great comet, which appeared when he was twelve 
years old. About a month later, at Wandsworth, on the memorable 
5th of October, I saw Arcturus gleaming through the then mighty 
comet’s wide sweeping, gracefully curved tail. It was truly a sight 
to be remembered, and it was duly drawn upon the pages of many a 
school book. 
But 1858 produced something more than a great comet and a 
famous vintage; it was a famous year in entomological annals, for 
all kinds of rarities were recorded in the journals. My own captures 
were, indeed, not very remarkable, but there is a note that in that 
summer I saw in my father’s garden at Wandsworth a Painted Lady 
and a Humming-bird moth, both rare visitors to that locality. It 
was probably in that same year that the Large Tortoise-shell was 
taken in the aforesaid garden—I remember the turn of the path 
