In summer, on the dry heathy commons of Surrey, there is always danger of a chance fire spreading, and it was part of his care to maintain a cleared belt for fending off this danger. Much of his day went in gathering débris and undergrowth, so as to keep clear ground about the trees, and then the heaped-up gatherings rewarded him with a bonfire in which he had a child's pleasure, mingled with an artist's appreciation of the shapes and colours of flame. It was for praise of this beauty that he specially loved Anatole France's _Rôtisserie de la Reine Pédauque_, with its celebrations of the salamanders and their vivid element. The heath blossom in all its kinds was cultivated, and it was his invariable custom to come up on a Monday from Pyrford with a spray of his favourite white heather in his buttonhole. Here, too, were associations, interesting if not exactly historic. The Battle of Dorking was fought close by, and in this neighbourhood the Martians descended. Chief of Pyrford's distinctions was the discovery on Sir Charles's own land, by Mr. Horace Donisthorpe, of a beetle (Lomechusa) which in Queen Anne's day Sir Hans Sloane had first identified in Hampstead, parasitic in a nest of red ants. A second specimen was found in 1710 in the mail- coach between Gloucester and Cheltenham; but from Queen Anne's day till 1906 it was regarded as extinct, until once more it was discovered, and discovered in its true place among the ants, on whose gestures and behaviour towards it, whether as indicating worship or serfdom, Sir Charles dilated with such rhetoric of description that the beetle assumed dimensions in the mind disappointing when it was viewed in reality. Another rarity of insect life at Pyrford was a spider whose appearances have been oftenest noted at Hampton Court. These creatures, large, black, and horrific, were accordingly known as 'Hampton Courters,' but received no welcome, being slain on sight, their slayer quoting a characteristic saying which he had heard from Anatole France: 'We all know of dangers which seem more terrible than they are. The spider alone suffers death for his carelessness as to this habit of exaggeration. Many an uncle spider walks about by candlelight, and is slain by us on account of his monstrous shadow, whereas his body, being but small, would have escaped our rage.' It was here that much of his Memoir was dictated, based on an enormous mass of letters, papers, and private diaries, kept throughout his Government career. After 1891 there is only a scattered series of entries, increasingly sparse as time went on. Mr. Hudson recalls their walks from the station at Woking to Pyrford across the then open common, the lunch of eggs and milk, and the hours of work, during the period between the publication of _Problems of Greater Britain_ and Sir Charles's return to Parliament for the Forest of Dean.