Grain and Chaff from an English ManorSavory, Arthur Herbert
History
Grain and Chaff from an English Manor
Savory, Arthur Herbert
Aldington (Worcestershire, England); Country life -- England; England -- Social life and customs
The larva of the Death's Head was not uncommon at Aldington and Badsey
on potatoes; I had a standing offer of threepence each for any that
the village children could bring me. These large caterpillars require
very careful handling, and I fear the children were not gentle enough
with them, as I only had one perfect specimen moth from all the larvae
they brought.
One of my hop-pickers captured and presented me with a very fine
specimen of the Convolvulus Hawk-moth at Aldington; they were
generally comparatively common that year (1901) and a collector took
no less than seventeen in a few days in the public garden at
Bournemouth.
The Clouded Yellow butterfly, whose appearance is very capricious,
occurred one summer in Worcestershire in considerable numbers; it is
strong on the wing and could easily reach the Midlands in fine weather
from the south of England, where it is more often seen. Those I saw
were flying high over clover fields, apparently in a hurry to get
further north-west.
The Marbled White is a somewhat local butterfly; there was a spot
along the Terrace on Cleeve Hill, near North Littleton and Cleeve
Prior, where, at the proper time, this insect was plentiful, but I
never saw it anywhere else in the neighbourhood.
One of the entomological prizes of the New Forest is the Purple
Emperor; it is impossible to do justice to the wonderful sheen of its
powerful wings. It inhabits the tops of lofty oaks, but does not
disdain to come down for a drink of water, sometimes from a muddy
pool, or even to feast on dead vermin which the keepers have
destroyed.
The Comma, so called from the C-mark on the under side of the hind
wings, is fairly plentiful in Worcestershire and Herefordshire in the
hop-districts, for the hop is its food plant; but it is curious that,
with the abundance of hops in Kent, Sussex, and Hants, it is quite a
rare insect in the south of England. The ragged edge of its hind wings
is probably an arrangement to baffle birds in pursuit, offering more
difficulty to securing a sure hold than is afforded by the even margin
of the hind wings of most butterflies.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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