Elliott & Fry. Photo Walker & Cookerell Ph. So.
Eleanor A. Ormerod

ELEANOR ORMEROD, LL.D.,
ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGIST:
AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND CORRESPONDENCE

EDITED BY ROBERT WALLACE

PROFESSOR OF AGRICULTURE AND RURAL ECONOMY

IN THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH

WITH PORTRAIT AND ILLUSTRATIONS

NEW YORK

E. P. DUTTON AND COMPANY

31 WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET

1904

DEDICATED

TO ALL

MISS ORMEROD’S CORRESPONDENTS

IN

ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY.

PREFACE

The idea that Miss Ormerod should write her biography originated with the present writer during one of many visits paid to her at St. Albans. Miss Ormerod had unfolded in charming language and with admirable lucidity and fluency some interesting chapters of her personal experiences and reminiscences. The first working plan of the project involved the concealment of a shorthand writer behind a screen in the dining-room while dinner was proceeding, and while the examination of ethnological specimens or other attractive objects gave place for a time to general conversation on subjects grown interesting by age. Although the shorthand writer was selected and is several times referred to in letters written about this period (pp. [304]-[307]), Miss Ormerod, on due reflection, felt that the presence, though unseen, of a stranger at these meetings in camera would make the position unnatural, and dislocate the association of ideas to the detriment of the narrative.

She then bethought herself of the method of writing down at leisure moments, from time to time as a suitable subject occurred to her, rough notes (p. [318]) to be elaborated later, and when after a time a subject had been exhausted, the rough notes were re-written and welded into a narrative (pp. [304]-[321]). Some four or five of the early chapters were thus treated and then typewritten, but the remainder of the Autobiography was left in crude form, requiring much piecing together and editorial trimming. Had the book been produced on the original plan, it was proposed to name it “Recollections of Changing Times.”[^[1]] It would have dealt with a number of subjects of general interest, such as the history of the Post Office, early records of floods and earthquakes, as well as newspapers of early date. The introduction of Miss Ormerod’s letters to a few of her leading correspondents was made necessary by the lack of other suitable material. The present volume is still mainly the product of Miss Ormerod’s pen, but with few exceptions general subjects have been eliminated; and it forms much more a record of her works and ways than it would have done had she been spared to complete it. From the inception of the idea the present writer was appointed editor, but had Miss Ormerod lived to see the book in the hands of the public his share of work would have been light indeed. Armed with absolute authority from her (p. [318]) to use his discretion in the work, he has exercised his editorial license in making minor alterations without brackets or other evidences of the editorial pen, while at the same time the integrity of the substance has been jealously guarded.

As in Miss Ormerod’s correspondence with experts only scientific names for insects and other scientific objects were employed, it was found expedient to introduce the common names within ordinary or round brackets. Much thought and care have been given to the arrangement of the letters, and a sort of compromise was adopted of three different methods that came up for consideration, viz., (1) according to chronological order, (2) according to the subjects discussed, and (3) grouping under the names of the individuals to whom they were addressed. While the third is the predominant feature of the scheme the chronological order has been maintained within the personal groups, and precedence in the book was generally given to the letters of the oldest date. At the same time, to complete a subject in one group written mainly to one correspondent, letters dealing with the subject under discussion have been borrowed from their natural places under the heading of “Letters to Dr. ——” or “Letters to Mr. ——.” While Miss Ormerod’s practice of referring to matters of minor importance and of purely personal interest in correspondence dealing mainly with definite lines of scientific research, has not been interfered with in a few instances, in most of the other groups of letters on technical subjects editorial pruning was freely practised to prevent confusion and to concentrate the subject matter. The chief exceptions occur in the voluminous and interesting correspondence with Dr. Fletcher, in her specially confidential letters to Dr. Bethune, and in the very general correspondence with the editor. It was felt that to remove more of the friendly references and passing general remarks to her correspondents would have been to invalidate the letters and show the writer of them in a character alien to her own.

The figures of insects which have been introduced into the correspondence, to lighten it and increase its interest to the reader, have been chiefly borrowed from Miss Ormerod’s published works; and among them will be found a number of illustrations from Curtis’s “Farm Insects,” for the use of which her acknowledgments were fully given to Messrs. Blackie, the publishers.[^[2]] The contents of this volume will afford ample evidence of Miss Ormerod’s intense interest in her subject, of the infinite pains she took to investigate the causes of injury, and of the untiring and unceasing efforts she employed to accomplish her object; also that her determinations relative to the causes and nature of parasitic attacks upon crops, give proof of soundness of judgment, and her advice, chiefly connected with remedial and preventive treatment, was eminently sensible and practical. Mainly by correspondence of the most friendly kind she formed a unique connecting link between economic entomologists in all parts of the world; and she quoted their various opinions to one another very often in support of her own preconceived ideas.

The three biographical chapters, [III]., [XI]., and [XII]., were added to the autobiographical statements which she had left, with the object merely of supplying some missing personal incidents in an interesting life. Other deficiencies in the Autobiography are made up by Miss Ormerod’s correspondence, and the history of her work is permitted to evolve from her own letters.

A strong vein of humour runs through many parts of her writings, notably in the chapter on “Church and Parish.” The reader will not fail to notice the splendid courtesy and deference to scientific authority, as well as the fullest appreciation of and unselfish sympathy with the genuine scientific work of others, which pervades all she wrote. Prominent among these characteristics of Miss Ormerod should be placed her scrupulous honesty of purpose in acknowledging to the fullest extent the work of others.

The work of collecting material, sifting, and editing has been going on for nearly two years, and could never have been accomplished but for the kindly help rendered by so many of Miss Ormerod’s correspondents, all of whom I now cordially thank for invaluable sympathetic assistance. Special acknowledgments are due to Sir Wm. Henry Marling, Bart., the present owner of Sedbury Park, and to Miss Ormerod’s nephews and nieces, who have been delighted to render such assistance as could not have been found outside the family circle. Besides Mr. Grimshaw, Mr. Janson, Dr. Stewart MacDougall, Professor Hudson Beare, and Mr. T. P. Newman who read the proofs critically, last, but not least, do I thank Mr. John Murray, whose friendly reception of the first overtures made to him as the prospective publisher of this volume brightened some of the dark moments near the close of Miss Ormerod’s life. I have had as editor the much appreciated privilege of drawing, in all cases of difficulty, upon Mr. Murray’s great literary experience.

In making these pleasing acknowledgments I in no way wish to shift the responsibility as Editor from my own shoulders for defects which may be discovered or for the general scheme of the work, which was, with slight modifications, my own. If it be said in criticism that the Editor is too little in evidence, I shall be all the more satisfied, as that has been throughout one of his leading aims.

ROBERT WALLACE.

University of Edinburgh,

1904.

LIST OF ERRATA.

Page 70, line 31, for “Tenebroides” read “Tenebrioides”.

Page 130, line 11, for “Ceutorhyncus” read “Ceuthorhyncus”.

Page 130 in description of Fig. [14], for “Ceutorhyncus” read “Ceuthorhyncus”.

Page 144, line 7, for “importad” read “imported”.

Page 185, line 1, for “Lucania” read “Leucania”.

Transcriber’s note:

These errata have been applied to this Project Gutenberg text.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

CHAPTER XII

CHAPTER XIII

CHAPTER XIV

CHAPTER XV

CHAPTER XVI

CHAPTER XVII

CHAPTER XVIII

CHAPTER XIX

CHAPTER XX

CHAPTER XXI

CHAPTER XXII

CHAPTER XXIII

CHAPTER XXIV

CHAPTER XXV

CHAPTER XXVI

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS IN THE TEXT

LIST OF FULL-PAGE PLATES

CHAPTER I
BIRTH, CHILDHOOD AND EDUCATION

I was born at Sedbury Park, in West Gloucestershire, on a sunny Sunday morning (the 11th of May, 1828), being the youngest of the ten children of George and Sarah Ormerod, of Sedbury Park, Gloucestershire, and Tyldesley, Lancashire. As a long time had elapsed since the birth of the last of the other children (my two sisters and seven brothers), my arrival could hardly have been a family comfort. Nursery arrangements, which had been broken up, had to be re-established. I have been told that I started on what was to be my long life journey, with a face pale as a sheet, a quantity of black hair, and a constitution that refused anything tendered excepting a concoction of a kind of rusk made only at Monmouth. The very earliest event of which I have a clear remembrance was being knocked down on the nursery stairs when I was three years old by a cousin of my own age. The damage was small, but the indignity great, and, moreover, the young man stole the lump of sugar which was meant to console me, so the grievance made an impression. A year later a real shock happened to my small mind. Whilst my sister, Georgiana, five years my senior, was warming herself in the nursery, her frock caught fire. She flew down the room, threw herself on the sheepskin rug at the door, and rolled till the fire was put out. But she was so badly burnt that the injuries required dressing, and this event also made a great impression on me. Other reminiscences of pleasure and of pain come back, in thinking over those long past days, but none of such special and wonderful interest as that of being held up to see King William IV. Little as I was, I had been taken to one of the theatres, and my father carried me along one of the galleries, and raised me in his arms that I might look through the glass window at the back of one of the boxes and see His Majesty. I do not in the least believe that I saw the right man. However, it is something to remember that about the year 1835, if I had not been so frightened, I might have seen the King.

In regard to any special likings of my earliest years it seems to me, from what I can remember or have been told, that there were signs even then of the chief tastes which have accompanied me through life—an intense love of flowers; a fondness for insect investigation; and a fondness also for writing. In my babyhood, even before I could speak, the sight of a bunch of flowers was the signal for both arms being held out to beg for the coveted treasure, and the taste was utilised when I was a little older, in checking a somewhat incomprehensible failure of health during the spring visit of the family to London. Some one suggested trying the effect of a supply of flower roots and seeds for me to exercise my love of gardening on, and the experiment was successful. I can remember my delight at the sight of the boxes of common garden plants—pansies, daisies, and the like; and I suppose some feeling of the restored comfort has remained through all these years to give a charm (not peculiarly exciting in itself) to the smell of bast mats and other appurtenances of the outside of Covent Garden market.

My first insect observation I remember perfectly. It was typical of many others since. I was quite right, absolutely and demonstrably right, but I was above my audience and fared accordingly. One day while the family were engaged watching the letting out of a pond, or some similar matter, I was perched on a chair, and given to watch, to keep me quiet at home, a tumbler of water with about half a dozen great water grubs in it. One of them had been much injured and his companions proceeded quite to demolish him. I was exceedingly interested, and when the family came home gave them the results of my observations, which were entirely disbelieved. Arguing was not permitted, so I said nothing (as far as I remember); but I had made my first step in Entomology.

Writing was a great pleasure. A treat was to go into the library and to sit near, without disturbing, my father, and “write a letter” on a bit of paper granted for epistolary purposes. The letter was presently sealed with one of the great armorial seals which my father wore—as gentlemen did then—in a bunch at what was called the “fob.” The whole affair must have been of a very elementary sort, but it was no bad application of the schoolroom lessons, for thus, quite at my own free will, I was practising the spelling of easy words, and their combination into little sentences, and also how to bring pen, ink, and paper into connection without necessitating an inky deluge. In those days children were not “amused” as is the fashion now. We neither went to parties, nor were there children’s parties at home, but I fancy we were just as happy. As soon as possible a certain amount of lessons, given by my mother, formed the backbone of the day’s employment. In the higher branches requisite for preparation for Public School work, my mother was so successful as to have the pleasure of receiving a special message of appreciation of her work sent to my father by Dr. Arnold, Head master of Rugby. All my brothers were educated under Dr. Arnold, two as his private pupils, and the five younger as Rugby schoolboys, and he spoke with great appreciation of the sound foundation which had been laid by my mother for the school work, especially as regarded religious instruction. From the fact of my brothers being so much older than I, the latter point is the only one which remains in my memory; but I have a clear recollection of my mother’s mustering her family class on Sunday afternoons, i.e., all whose age afforded her any excuse to lay hands on them. Whether in the earlier foundation or more advanced work, my mother’s own great store of solid information, and her gift for imparting it, enabled her to keep us steadily progressing. Everything was thoroughly learned, and once learned never permitted to be forgotten. Nothing was attempted that could not be well understood, and this was expected to be mastered. In playtime we were allowed great liberty to follow our own pursuits, in which the elders of the family generally participated, and as we grew older we made collections (in which my sister Georgiana’s love of shells laid the foundation of what was afterwards a collection of 3,000 species), and carried on “experiments,” everlasting re-arrangement of our small libraries, and amateur book-binding. All imaginable ways of using our hands kept us very happily employed indoors. Out of doors there was great enjoyment in the pursuits which a country property gives room for, and I think I was a very happy child, although I fancy what is called a “very old-fashioned” one, from not having companions of my own age.

On looking back over the years of my early childhood, the period when instruction—commonly known as education—is imparted, it seems to me that this followed the distinction between education and the mere acquirement of knowledge (well brought out by one of the Coleridges), and embraced the former much more fully than is the case at the present day. There was no undue pressure on bodily or mental powers, but the work was steady and constant. The instruction, except in music, was given by my mother, who had, in an eminent degree, the gift of teaching. Although at the present time home education is frequently held up to contempt, still some recollections of my own home teaching may be of interest. The subjects studied were those included in what is called a “solid English education.” First in order was biblical knowledge and moral precepts, practical as well as expository, which seem to have glided into my head without my being aware how, excepting in the case of the enormity of any deviation from truth. In each of the six week-days’ work came a chapter of Scripture, read aloud, half in English, and half in French, by my sister and me. The “lessons,” i.e., recitation, inspection of exercises, &c., followed. The subjects at first were few—but they were thoroughly explained. Geography, for example, was taken at first in its broad bearings, viz., countries, provinces, chief towns, mountains, rivers, and so on (what comes back to my mind as corresponding to “large print”), and gradually the “small print” was added, with as minute information as was considered necessary. Use of the map was strictly enforced, and repetition to impress it on the memory. I seem to hear my mother inculcating briskness in giving names of county towns—“Northumberland? Now then! quick as lightning, answer.” “Newcastle, Morpeth and Alnwick, in Northumberland”; and to enforce attention a tap of my mother’s thimble on the table, or possibly, if stupidity required great rousing, with more gentle application on the top of my head. If things were bad beyond endurance, the book was sent with a skim across the room, which had an enlivening effect; but this rarely happened. My mother gave the morning hours to the work (unless there was some higher claim upon them, such as my father requiring her for some purpose or other) but she always declared that she would have nothing to do with the preparation of lessons in the afternoon. If all went fairly well, as usual, the passage for next day’s lesson was carefully read over at my mother’s side, and difficulties explained, and then I was expected to learn it by myself. What we knew as “doing lessons”—which now I believe passes under the more advanced name of “preparation”—was left to my own care, and if this proved next morning not to have been duly given I had reason to amend my ways. The preparation hour was from four to five o’clock, but if the lessons had not been learned by that time they were expected to be done somehow, though I think my mother was very lenient if any tolerably presentable reason were given for short measure. If the work were completed in less than the allotted time, I was allowed to amuse myself by reading poetry, of which I was excessively fond, from the great volume of “Extracts” from which my lesson had been learned. This plan seems to me to have had many advantages. For one thing, I carried the morning’s explanations in my head till called upon, and for another, I think it gave some degree of self-reliance, as well as a habit of useful, quiet self-employment for a definite time. This was, in all reason, expected to be carefully adhered to, and I can well remember when I had hurried home from a summer’s walk how the muscles in my legs would twitch whilst I endeavoured to learn a French verb.

One educational detail which, as far as my experience goes, appears to have been much better conducted in my young days than at present, was that reading aloud to the little people had not then come into vogue. I have no recollection of being allowed to lie about on the carpet, heels in the air, whilst some one read a book to me. There was also the peculiarity to which, if I remember rightly, Sir Benjamin Brodie attributes in his autobiography some of his success in life, viz., work was almost continuous. There was never an interval of some weeks’ holidays. A holiday was granted on some great occasion, such as the anniversary of my father and mother’s wedding-day and birthdays, and on the birthdays of other members of the family, but (if occurring on consecutive days) somewhat under protest; and half-holidays were not uncommon in summer. These consisted of my being excused the afternoon preparation of lessons, and as the pretext for asking was generally the weather’s being “so very fine,” I conjecture it was thought that an extra run in the fresh air was perhaps a healthy variety of occupation. Any way, the learning lost must have been small, for excepting the written part of the work the lessons were expected to appear next morning in perfect form, however miscellaneously acquired. One way or other there were occasional breaks by pleasant episodes such as picnics, on fine summer days, to one of the many old ruined castles, or disused little Monmouthshire churches, or Roman remains in the neighbourhood, where my father worked up the material for some forthcoming archæological essay and my mother executed some of her beautiful sketches (plate [VI].). The carriage-load of young ones enjoyed themselves exceedingly, and prevented the work from becoming monotonous or burdensome. And there were joyful days before and after going from home, and now and then, when it was impossible for my mother to give her morning up to the work, if she had not appointed one of the elder of the young fry her deputy for the occasion. I remember, too, that I took my book in play hours, when and where I wished; sometimes on a fine summer afternoon the “where” might be sitting on a horizontal bough of a large old Portugal laurel in the garden. And I fancy that the perch in the fresh air, with the green light shimmering round me, was as good for my bodily health (by no means robust) as my entertaining little book for my progress in reading.

It was remarkable the small quantity of food which it was at one time thought the right thing for ladies to take in public. I suppose from early habit, my mother, who was active both in body and mind, used to eat very little. At lunch she would divide a slice of meat with me. Although now the death, in her confinement, of the Princess Charlotte, “the people’s darling,” which plunged the nation in sorrow, is a thing only of history, yet it is on record how she almost implored for more food, the special desire being mutton chops. Though not in any way connected with the Royal Family, my mother held in memory the unhappy event from its consequences. Sir Richard Croft, whose medical attentions had been so inefficient to the Princess, was shortly after called to attend in a similar capacity on Mrs. Thackeray, wife of Dr. Thackeray, then or after Provost of King’s College, Cambridge. For some reason or other he left his patient for a while, and the story went that, finding pistols in the room where he was resting, he shot himself. Miss Cotton—Mrs. Thackeray’s sister—was a friend of my mother. Miss Thackeray, the infant who was ushered into the world by the death of both her mother and the doctor, survived, and in her young-lady days was particularly fond of dancing; and I have the remembrance of my first London ball being at her aunt’s house.

PLATE I.
Sedbury Park House and Grounds, distant view.

Mansion House, Sedbury Park; Miss Georgiana Ormerod on the left, Miss Eleanor Ormerod on the right.
(pp. [14], [48].)

CHAPTER II
PARENTAGE

The situation of Sedbury (plate I.), rising to an elevation of about 170 feet between the Severn and the Wye, opposite Chepstow, was very beautiful, and the vegetation rich and luxuriant. My father purchased the house and policy grounds from Sir Henry Cosby about 1826, and it was our home till his death in 1873. He retained Tyldesley, his other property in Lancashire, with its coal mines, but we did not reside there, as the climate was too cold for the health of my mother and for the young family.

[The original purchase was called Barnesville, and earlier still Kingston Park, and it consisted of a moderate-sized villa with the immediately adjoining grounds. The property was added to by purchases from the Duke of Beaufort, and it was renamed Sedbury Park after the nearest village. To the house the new owner added a handsome colonnade about 10 feet wide, and a spacious library. Sir Robert Smirke, the architect of all the improvements, was the man who designed the British Museum, the General Post Office, &c.[^[3]] Barnes Cottage on the property, at one time ‘Barons Cottage,’ was kept in habitable repair because it secured to the estate the privilege of a seat in church.]

About sixteen miles from Sedbury Park are still to be seen the interesting ruins of the Great Roman station of this part of the country, Caerwent or the white tower, the Venta Silurum of Antonine’s “Itinerary.”[^[4]] Its trade and military importance were transferred to Strigul, now known as Chepstow, after the Norman Conquest. Sedbury Park is believed to have been an outlying post of this chief military centre, and it was occupied by soldiers “guarding the beacon and the look-out over the passages” of the Severn. Considerable finds of Roman pottery (plate [XI].) were discovered about 1860, while drains about 4 feet deep were being cut near to the Severn cliffs. They consisted chiefly of fragments of rough earthenware—cooking dishes and cinerary urns, &c. There was also a small quantity of glazed, red Samian cups and one piece of Durobrivian ware and great quantities of animals’ teeth and bones, but no coins (p. [174]). After the death of my father it was found that much of the best ware had been stolen.

My father (plate [II].) is well known for the high place he takes amongst our English County historians, as the author of “The History of the County Palatine, and City of Chester,” published in 1818. He came of the old Lancashire family of Ormerod of Ormerod, a demesne in the township of Cliviger, a wild and mountainous district, situated along the boundaries of Lancashire and Yorkshire. The varied watershed (transmitting the streams to the eastern and western seas); the beauties of the rocks and waterfalls; the shaded glens, and the antique farmhouses (where fairy superstition still lingered till the beginning of the past century), have been written about by Whitaker in his “History of Whalley.”[^[5]] There, in the year 1810, in an elevated position, amongst aged pine and elm trees, and surrounded by high garden walls of dark stone, the mansion, (plate [XXVIII].)—since greatly enlarged by the family of the present proprietor—stood in a dingle at the side of a mountain stream, which rushed behind it at a considerable depth. Beyond the stream, the rise of the ground to the more elevated moors includes a view of the summit of Pendle Hill, of exceedingly evil repute for meetings of witches and warlocks, and congenerous unpleasantnesses, in the olden time.

PLATE II.
George Ormerod, Esq., D.C.L., LL.D., F.R.S., F.S.A.,
of Sedbury Park, Gloucestershire, and Tyldesley, Lancashire,
Father of Miss Ormerod.
From a painting after Jackson, date circa 1820.
(pp: [11], [14].)

The family of Ormerod was settled in the locality from which they took their name, as far back as the year 1311, the estates continuing in their possession until, in 1793 (by the marriage of Charlotte Ann Ormerod, sole daughter and heiress of Laurence Ormerod, the last of the generation of the parent stem in direct male descent), they passed to Colonel John Hargreaves; and by the marriage of his eldest daughter and co-heiress, Eleanor Mary, with the Rev. William Thursby, they became vested in the Thursby family,[^[6]] represented until recently by Sir John Hardy Thursby, Bart., of Ormerod House, Burnley, Lancashire, and Holmhurst, Christchurch, Hants. Sir John showed thoughtful, philanthropic feeling to his Lancashire district, by presenting the land for a public park to Burnley, and, in connection with his family, he also gave the site for the neighbouring “Victoria Hospital.” In 1887, he served as High Sheriff of Lancashire, and was created Baronet. Dying on March 16, 1901, he was succeeded by his eldest son, John Ormerod Scarlett Thursby, of Bankhall, Burnley, who, in his surname and baptismal names, keeps alive the connection with the old family stock and the families with which the last two co-heiresses of Ormerod were connected by marriage. With these matters of possessions, however, the collateral branch of Ormerod, of Bury in Lancashire (from the special founder of which my father was descended in direct male line), had nothing to do. From Oliver Ormerod, who became permanently resident at Bury shortly after the close of the seventeenth century, descended his only son, George Ormerod of Bury, merchant. From him descended George Ormerod (an only child), who died on October 7, 1785, a few days before the birth of his only child—my father—yet another George Ormerod. In a mere statement of the names of the representatives of successive generations, of whom no specially distinguishing points appear to have been recorded, there is, perhaps, little of general interest. But possibly some amount of interest attaches to the proofs of representatives of one family having lived quietly on from generation to generation in one locality since the early part of the fourteenth century. The connections and intermarrying of the Ormerods with many of the Lancashire families of former days give the subject a county interest to those who care to search out the genealogical, historical and heraldic details given at great length in my father’s volume of “Parentalia.” Here and there some member of the family appears to have come before the world, as in the case of Oliver Ormerod, M.A., noted as a profound scholar, theologian, and Puritan controversialist, and author of two polemical works—one entitled “The Picture of a Puritan,” published in 1605, and the other “The Picture of a Papist,” published in 1606. Oliver Ormerod was presented to the Rectory of Norton Fitzwarren, Co. Somerset, by William Bourchier, third Earl of Bath, and afterwards to the Rectory of Huntspill in the same county, where he died in the year 1625.

Something, however, occurred in 1784 of much interest to our own branch of the family, leading subsequently to great increase of property, and likewise in some degree, connecting us with the Jacobite troubles of 1745. This was the marriage of my grandfather with Elizabeth, second daughter of Thomas Johnson, of Tyldesley. Thomas Johnson (my great grandfather) having married, secondly, Susannah, daughter and co-heiress of Samuel Wareing, of Bury and Walmersley, got with her considerable estates, inherited from the Wareings, the Cromptons of Hacking, and Nuthalls of Golynrode. On the occasion of the march of Charles Stewart to Manchester in 1745, “Tyldesley”—to use the form of appellation often given from property in those days—suffered many hardships. As one of the five treasurers who had undertaken to receive Lancashire subscriptions in aid of the reigning monarch, King George the Second, and as an influential local friend of the cause, he was one of those who suffered the infliction of domiciliary military visitation, and also threat of torture by burning his hands to induce him to give up government papers and money in his possession. I have still in my house (1901) the large hanging lamp of what is now called “Old Manchester” glass, which lighted the dining-room when my great grandfather stood so steadily to his trust that although the straw had been brought for the purpose of torture (or to terrify him into submission) extremities were not proceeded to. He was ultimately left a prisoner on parole, in his house, until released in December, 1745, in consequence of the retreat of the rebel army. But disagreeable as this state of things must have been at the best, it was to some degree lightened by kindness (or at least absence of unnecessary annoyance) on the part of the Jacobite officers, of whom stories remained in the family to my own time. One especial point was their kindness to my eldest great aunt,[^[7]] then a little child, whom they used to take on their knees to show her what she described as their “little guns.” The drinking of the healths of the rival princes, which probably often led to a less peaceful ending, was mentioned by my father in his History of Cheshire, as a notable instance of consideration.

PLATE III.
Family Group—George Ormerod as a child; his Mother seated behind him; her brother, Thomas Johnson, Esq., of Tyldesley, Lancashire, standing; and their Mother seated on the right.
Composition from miniature, circa 1780.

“On one occasion when the Scotch officers who caroused in their prisoner’s house, had given their usual toast King James, and the host on request had followed with his, and undauntedly proposed King George, some rose, and touched their swords; but a senior officer exclaimed, ‘He has drunk our Prince, why should we not drink his? Here’s to the Elector of Hanover.’”[^[8]]

During the disturbed time, when any one bearing the appearance of a messenger would assuredly have been seized with the papers which he carried, the difficulty of transmitting information was met by the employment at night of two greyhounds trained for the service. The documents were fastened to the animals and thus carried safely to the adherent’s house, from which as opportunity offered they could be passed on. The greyhounds, having been well fed as a reward and encouragement to future good behaviour, were started off on their return journey. In the present day this plan of transmission would very soon be discovered, but in those times the nature of the country, the nocturnal hours chosen, and also the deeply-rooted superstitions of the district, all helped to make the four-footed messengers very trusty carriers.

In 1755 Thomas Johnson served as Sheriff of Lancashire. He died in 1763, leaving a widow (who survived him until 1798), one son, and three daughters—the only survivors of a family of eleven children, of whom seven died in infancy, three on the day of their birth. Of the four children who reached maturity, Elizabeth, the second daughter (plate III.) married my grandfather, George Ormerod of Bury, at the Collegiate Church, Manchester, on the 18th of October, 1784. He died in 1785, a fortnight before the birth of my father, who was the sole issue of this marriage.

My father, George Ormerod (plate [II].), heir to his grandfather, was born October 20, 1785. He was co-heir of, and successor to the estates of his maternal uncle in 1823, and sole heir to his surviving maternal aunt in 1839. He was D.C.L., LL.D., F.R.S., F.S.A., and a magistrate for the counties of Cheshire, Gloucester, and Monmouth. On August 2, 1808, he married my mother, Sarah, eldest daughter of John Latham, Bradwall Hall, Cheshire, Fellow and sometime President of the Royal College of Physicians, Harley Street, London.[^[9]]

My grandfather in the female line, John Latham, M.D., F.R.S. (plate [IV].), the eldest son of the Rev. John Latham, came of an old family stock, and was born in 1761 in the rectory house at Gawsworth, Cheshire. He was educated first at Manchester Grammar School, and thence proceeded (with the view of studying for orders) to Brasenose College, Oxford, but the strong bent of his own wishes towards the medical profession induced him to alter his plans, and he took his degree of M.D. on October 10, 1788. “His first professional years were passed at Manchester and Oxford, where he was physician to the respective infirmaries. In 1788 he removed to London, was admitted Fellow of the College of Physicians, and elected successively physician to the Middlesex, the Magdalen, and St. Bartholomew Hospitals. In 1795 he was appointed Physician Extraordinary to the Prince of Wales, and reappointed to the same office on the Prince’s accession to the throne as George IV. In 1813 Dr. Latham was elected President of the College of Physicians; in 1816, founded the Medical Benevolent Society; and in 1829 finally left London, retiring to his estate at Bradwall Hall, where he died on April 20, 1843, in the eighty-second year of his age.”

He indulged in the practical pleasures of country life, and maintained a home farm, on which he kept a dairy of sixty cows. He was a man of great force of character and of decisive action. On one occasion a man who had been told that if he returned he would be summarily ejected, came back to crave an audience. On being reminded of the fact he pleaded, “Oh! doctor, you do not really mean it.” “Yes, I do,” was the prompt reply as an order was given to the butler to turn the intruder out.

PLATE IV.
John Latham, Esq., M.D., F.R.S., Physician Extraordinary to George IV., maternal grandfather of Miss Ormerod, in his robes as President of the Royal College of Physicians, 1813 to 1819.

Dr. Latham married, in 1784, Mary, eldest daughter and co-heiress of the Rev. Peter Mayer, Vicar of Prestbury, Cheshire, by whom he had numerous children, of whom three sons and two daughters lived to maturity. My mother, his eldest daughter, survived him, as did also her brothers. Of these the second son, Peter Mere Latham, M.D., of Grosvenor-street, Westminster, one of Her Majesty’s Physicians Extraordinary, was long well known as an eminent consulting physician regarding diseases of the chest, until his own severe sufferings from asthma obliged him to retire to Torquay, where he died on July 20, 1875.

From our being related to John Latham and his wife, Mary Mayer (although in point of rank the difference was so enormous between the head from whom we could trace and ourselves), it is permissible to allude to our connection with the family of Arderne of Alvanley, and consequent descent from King Edward the First and his wife, Eleanor of Castile. This gave us our claim of “founder’s kin” in the election to the “Port Fellowship” of Brasenose College, to which distinction in my time my brother— Rev. John Arderne Ormerod—was elected. He was the last Port Fellow on the above foundation. The record of each generation will be found in the genealogical table of “Arderne” in my father’s “Parentalia,” and also on reference to the pedigrees of the many families of which members are named in the “History of Cheshire.”

CHAPTER III
REMINISCENCES OF SEDBURY BY MISS DIANA LATHAM[^[10]]

My cousin Eleanor Anne Ormerod was the youngest of a family of ten—seven brothers and three sisters—all clever, energetic creatures, and gifted with a strong sense of humour. A large family always creates a peculiar atmosphere for itself; it also breaks up into detachments of elder and younger growth, and the elder members are beginning to take places in the world before the younger are out of the schoolroom. Eleanor’s eldest brother was a Church dignitary while she was still a child, teased and petted by her young medical student brothers, and the darling of her elder sister Georgiana. The father and mother of this numerous flock were both remarkable people. Mr. Ormerod, historian and antiquary, always occupied with literary or topographical research, was an autocrat in his own family and intolerant of any shortcomings or failings that came under his notice. He could, however, on occasion, relax and tell humorous stories to children. The family discipline was strict; the younger members were expected to yield obedience to the elders, and it was said that the spaniel Guy (he came from Warwick), who ranked as one of the children, always obeyed the eldest of the family present. My aunt had a large share of the milk of human kindness added to much practical common sense and a touch of artistic genius in her composition; it was from her that her daughters inherited their eye for colour and dexterity of touch. Mr. Ormerod was a neat draughtsman of architectural subjects, but my aunt had taste and skill and a delight in her own branch of art—flower painting—that lasted all her life.

Sedbury Park (plate I.) was a beautiful home; the house, a handsome family mansion with comfortable old-fashioned furniture, good and interesting pictures, old china, and a splendid library, afforded also ample space for its inmates to follow their various hobbies, and many were the arts and crafts practised there at various times. The carpenter’s bench, the lathe, wood-carving, electro-typing, modelling and casting for models each had their turn, and in all this strenuous play Eleanor had her full share. Society played a very secondary part in life at Sedbury; calls were exchanged with county neighbours at due intervals, and there was some intimacy with Copleston, Bishop of Llandaff, the Bathursts of Lydney Park, and the Horts of Hardwicke. But though Mr. Ormerod attended to his duties as magistrate, and went duly to meetings of the bench at Chepstow, he was quite without sympathy for field sports and the pursuits of his brother magistrates. He was absorbed in his own studies, and something of a recluse by nature.

[Miss Ormerod has herself written of the elaborateness of the arrangements and the great formality which were associated with the regular county dinner party, the chief method of entertainment at Sedbury sixty years ago. She referred to the anxieties experienced lest the coach should not arrive in time with the indispensables including fish—“the distance of Sedbury from London involving twenty-four hours or more of transmission in weather favourable or otherwise.” Miss Ormerod continues:—

“One very important matter in the far gone past times in the arrangement of the dinner table, was the removal of the great cloth and of two cloths laid, one at each side, just wide enough to occupy the uncovered space before the guests, and long enough to reach from one end of the table to the other. The removal required a deal of care and dexterity, and I do not think it was practised at many other houses in our neighbourhood. When the table was to be cleared for dessert of course everything was removed, including the great tablecloth itself—one of the handsomest of the family possessions, and of considerable length when there were the usual number of about eighteen or twenty guests. The operation was performed as follows:—The butler placed himself at the end of each strip successively, and a few of the house servants or of those who came with guests along each side. The butler drew the slips in turn and the servants took care there should be no hitch in the passage of the cloths, and so each was nicely gathered up.

“But the removal of the great tablecloth which was the next operation was a more difficult matter. The great heavy central epergne of rosewood had to be lifted a little way up by a strong man-servant or two, whilst the tablecloth was slipped from beneath it and the cloth was started on its travels down the table till it came into the hands of the butler, who gathered it up. The beautifully polished table then appeared in full lustre. The shining surface sparkled excellently and presently reflected the bright silver and glass and the fruit and flowers with a brilliance which to my thinking was much more beautiful than the arrangement of later days.”]

The annual visit to London was a great delight to my aunt, who enjoyed meetings with her own family and friends, and visits to exhibitions, &c. Her husband had always occupation in the British Museum, and her daughters took painting and other lessons. Mary, the eldest, was a pupil of Copley Fielding; Georgiana (plate [XXVII].), and Eleanor later, had lessons from Hunt and learnt from him how to combine birds’ nests and objects of still life with fruits and flowers into very lovely pictures. Both were excellent artists with a slight difference in style: Georgiana’s pictures had great harmony of colour and composition; Eleanor’s had more chic. Hunt was a very touchy little man—almost a dwarf—and if by any chance my aunt did not see him and bow as she drove past he cherished resentment for days after. At Sedbury driving tours or picnic excursions to the ruined castles and other objects of interest (plates [V]., [XVI]., [XXV].), in the neighbourhood were frequent, and the sketches that resulted were often reproduced as zincographs. Now and then a tour abroad was achieved, but such tours were few and far between. The beautiful copy of Correggio’s “Marriage of St. Catherine” which ultimately became Eleanor’s property, was acquired on a visit to Paris and the Louvre.

This self-contained family life did not lead to the marriage of the daughters, and three only of the seven sons married—one very late in life. Mary, the Princess Royal of the family, was the centre of the first group—herself and four brothers; Georgiana that of the second, consisting of two brothers older than herself, one younger, and Eleanor. Georgiana was a most lovable person; she always believed in her younger sister’s capacity and in her projects, which were not approved of nor taken seriously by some of her elders, and could not have been carried out until after the break up of the home on the death of Mr. Ormerod. Meantime, the naturalist element in Eleanor was free to lay up knowledge for future use, and her country life gave leisure and opportunity for observation of bird, plant, and insect life, to say nothing of reptiles. Any snake killed on the estate was brought to Eleanor, and if it was remarkable for size or beauty she took a cast of it to be afterwards electrotyped, or had it buried in an ant-hill in order to set up its skeleton when the ants had cleaned the bones. The casts, which resembled bronze, were sometimes attached to slabs of green Devonshire marble, and made handsome paper weights. Wasps were at one time a subject of special study and interest to her brother Dr. Edward Ormerod, and she and Georgiana once conveyed a wasp’s nest to him at Brighton. I believe he did not allow the wasps to exceed a certain number, out of consideration for the neighbouring fruiterers.

The premature deaths of Edward and William, physician and surgeon, were heartfelt sorrows to the two sisters nearest in age. If Eleanor’s lot had been cast in later days she might have become a lady doctor of renown; she had many qualifications for the medical profession and a liking for domestic surgery; she had strong nerves and inspired confidence and used to say that she never went a journey without some fellow-passenger going into a detailed account of all her ailments. Besides strong nerves she had strong eye-sight and a delicate but firm touch. Her brothers did not encourage anatomical studies, but she could prepare sections of teeth and other objects for the microscope as beautifully as any professional microscopist. Some of my cousins were strong sighted and very short-sighted, and much inclined to be sceptical as to my long-sighted vision.

My last visit to Sedbury was in the autumn of 1853 in company with my step-sister Margaret Roberts, then just beginning to try her powers as an authoress. Eleanor must then have been twenty-five or twenty-six, but was considered to be quite young by her family, and in some respects was really so. She no longer played such pranks as embarking in a tub to navigate the horse pond, but her fine dark eyes would shine with mischief, and she was the licensed jester to the family circle.

PLATE V.
Ruins of Tintern Abbey, Monmouthshire.
Frith photo.

The routine of life at Sedbury usually began, on the part of the younger members of the family, with a walk after breakfast prefaced by a visit to the poultry yard and greenhouses. Georgiana was chief hen-wife, and kept an account of the eggs and chickens. The park, lying on high ground between the Severn and the Wye, had beautiful points of view and fine timber, and there were lovely views beyond its precincts. “Offa’s Dyke” ran through a corner of the estate, and the discovery of some Roman pottery in its neighbourhood had given my cousins much occupation in sticking broken fragments together and re-building them into vases (plate [XI].). Our most beautiful walk, rather too long for the morning strolls, was to the “double view,” a projecting promontory above the Wye where the river curves and from whence a lovely view is visible both up and down the stream. From the morning walk we always brought back something from hedge or field for my aunt to draw as she lay on her sofa with her drawing table across it. She was then in failing health, but still able to draw, and she used to make studies of flowers in pencil on grey paper, touching in the high light with Chinese white. Each drawing when finished was shut up in a large book, and there kept until some gathering of the family took place, when the drawings were produced and a lottery ensued, each person choosing a drawing in turn according to the number on the ticket they had drawn. I have a book of these beautiful drawings (plate [VI].) which I greatly prize. In her youthful days she had painted in oils, and there were some fine copies of Dutch flower pictures in the drawing-room made by her. In later life the care of her large family left scant time for Art, but she cherished it in her daughters, and it was again a resource in her advanced age. The great sculptor Flaxman was a friend of her father and had encouraged her youthful efforts in Art. She had amazing industry and had copied many of his designs on wood as furniture decorations.

PLATE VI.
Portion of Norman Work from Chepstow Parish Church.
From a drawing by Mrs. Ormerod, 1844.
(p. [6].)

Georgiana and Eleanor usually had some painting or other industry on hand, or copying to do for their father. In the afternoon we often took a drive and were taken to see Tintern or the Wynd Cliff or some other point of interest. After dinner we sat in the library, a fine room with a splendid collection of books shut up in wire bookcases. Each member of the family had a key to the imprisoned books, but a visitor felt that to get one extracted for personal use was rather a ceremony. The beautiful illustrated books were brought out for the evening’s entertainment and then safely housed again. On Sundays we walked or drove to Tidenham Church, a “little grey church on a windy hill” (plate [VII].). We took a walk in the afternoon, and in the evening Mr. Ormerod read a sermon in the library to us and the servants. Such was the routine of life that autumn at Sedbury. At the time of our visit, the Gloucester Musical Festival was going on, but there was no thought of going to hear it. In later years Eleanor possessed a good piano and studied the theory of music, but I think that was prompted by her general cleverness and activity of intellect rather than by any special gift for music. She was teaching herself Latin during our visit, and as time went on she acquired other languages. She made beautiful models of fruits by a process of her own invention. A collection of these was sent to an International Exhibition at St. Petersburg and she acquired sufficient knowledge of Russian to correspond with the department of the Exhibition receiving them.

After the break-up of the Sedbury home, consequent on the death of Mr. Ormerod, who survived his wife[^[11]] for many years, Mary bought the lease of a house in Exeter and settled there for the rest of her life; the two younger sisters took a house for three years in Torquay, where we were then living as well as their, and our, old and beloved uncle, Dr. Mere Latham. Wishing to be nearer London, they removed to Isleworth and some years later to Torrington House, St. Alban’s, where they spent the remaining years of their lives.

DIANA LATHAM.

CHAPTER IV
CHURCH AND PARISH

Our Parish Church (plate [VII].), that is to say, the Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Tidenham, Gloucestershire, in which parish my father’s Sedbury property was situated, was of considerable antiquarian interest, as, although the hamlet of Churchend in which it stands is not mentioned in the Saxon survey of 956, the original church was in existence in the year 1071. The fabric of the church when I knew it was of later date, and, as shown by the accompanying sketch, chiefly in the architecture of the fourteenth century, excepting the south doorways of the nave and chancel and the tall narrow trefoil-headed windows in the north aisle. The chief point of archæological interest, however, lies in its possession of a leaden font (plate [VII].) in perfect repair, referable from its style to the transition period of Saxon and Anglo-Norman architecture, and considered not likely to be more recent in date than the eleventh century. The subject derives additional interest from the circumstance of the precise correspondence of this font in Tidenham Church with the leaden font in the church of the adjoining small parish of Llancaut, making it demonstrably certain that both the fonts were cast from the same mould.[^[12]] The decorations on the fonts are in mezzo relievo. These consist of figures and foliage ranged alternately, in twelve compartments, under ornamental, semi-circular arches resting on pillars; the design—two arches containing figures alternating with two arches containing foliage—being thrice repeated. The details will be better understood from the accompanying plate than from verbal description, but may be stated as representing respectively under each of the two thrice-repeated arches a venerable figure seated on a throne, the first of the two holding a sealed book, the second raising his hand as in the act of benediction, after removal of the seal from a similar book which is grasped in his hand. Each of these figures was considered to represent the Second Person of the Trinity.[^[13]] On this point I am not qualified to offer an opinion, but whatever may be the case as to ecclesiastical adaptation in the representation in the second of the two figures, the first of the throned figures appears to coincide with the description of the vision of the Deity, given in the “Revelation” of St. John, chap. V. verse 1,[^[14]] rather than with any representation of “The Lamb” that “stood,” as it had been slain, and “came and took the book out of the right hand of him that sat upon the throne” (verses 6 and 7 of the chapter quoted).

PLATE VII.
Leaden Font in Tidenham Church.

Church of St. Mary the Virgin, Tidenham, Gloucestershire.
The vault on S.E. side of the Church, about 15 ft. square,
is the grave of Miss Ormerod’s Father and Mother.
From a sketch by Miss Georgiana E. Ormerod.

The illustration is taken from very careful “rubbings” of the Tidenham Font. The Llancaut font has suffered considerable damage, and likewise the loss of two of the original twelve compartments. These had presumably been removed to make the font more suitable to the exceedingly small size of the little Norman chapel (plate [VIII].). This church, which in my time was almost disused, measured only about 40 feet in length by 12 in breadth, and possessed nothing of an architectural character, excepting one small round-headed window at the east end, with plain cylindrical side shafts without capitals, and a small cinquefoil piscina. The situation, on one of the crooks of the Wye, and just above the river, is romantic in the extreme. The ground rapidly slopes down to it from above, clothed with woodland from the level of the top of the precipitous cliffs which rise almost immediately beside it to a great height above the river. Access on that side is thus only possible by boat, or by a rough way, known as the Fisherman’s Path, along the front of the cliffs. Nevertheless, because of the exceeding picturesqueness of the spot, it was a favourite resort on the twelve Sundays in the year on which (I believe under some legal necessity) service was there, in my time, performed. The scene, on the only occasion I was ever present (when our parish church was closed), might have furnished an excellent subject for a painting, as the congregation (far too many for the little church to hold), in their bright Sunday dress, emerged from the sloping glades or woodland, to the open space close by the church. Comfort was a matter of minor importance. Those who disposed themselves on the grass, where they had full enjoyment of the fresh summer air, and heard, through the open door, as much of the service as they chose to listen to, doubtless enjoyed themselves, but within it was not so agreeable. The squire’s family were of course installed in the pew, and there we were packed as tightly as could be managed, so that we all had to get up and sit down together. We had a “strange clergyman,” reported to be of vast learning; and my juvenile terror, along with my physical condition from squeezing, has imprinted the morning’s performance on my recollection as something truly wretched.

There being no resident population the chapel has since fallen into ruin, and the font and bell have been removed to the mother parish of Woolastone, the bell now doing duty at the day-school there. In 1890 Sir William H. Marling, Bart. (patron of the living) carefully restored the font and placed within it a brass plate bearing the following inscription:—

“Perantiquum hunc fontem baptismalem e ruinis sacelli scī Jacobi Lancaut in comū Gloucē servatum refecit Guls̄ Hes̄ Marling Bars̄ A.D, 1890.”

The venerable relic stands in the hall at Sedbury Park.

PLATE VIII.
Norman Chapel, Llancaut, Wye Cliffs.

The history of the “Church” in our parish of Tidenham, whether interpreted as the body of believers or the building in which they worshipped, might be well taken, during about the fifty middle years of the past century, as an illustration of “changing times.” In the year 1826—or thereabouts—when my father purchased the property, Tidenham Church was no exception to many other churches in rural districts. The interior comes back to my remembrance as dark, dingy, and very decidedly damp, as shown by the green mould on pillars and walls. One of the first improvements was the placing of two good stoves in the church,—one presented by my father, and the other (rather, I believe, against local wishes) by the Parish. I well remember the presence of the stoves, as it was considered by the churchwardens, or whoever arranged these matters, that the time which was most decorous for stirring the fires was during the singing as “it drowned the noise.” What our local choir consisted of I do not remember, but I rather think it was simply vocal, and started by a “pitchpipe.” But at least there was nothing ridiculous about it. We did not, as in a church at no great distance, have the violinist and his instrument carried in on a man’s shoulders because the unfortunate musician was without legs!

The sittings for the congregation were (I suppose as a matter of course in those days) all in closed pews with doors—the pews of a size, form, and respectability of appearance, likewise of comfort and fittings, according to the social position of their holders. It could not, however, be said that the chief parishioners had the best places, for our two large, roomy, square seats were mounted up, side by side, a few steps above the others at the end of the north aisle, with a good wall between us and the chancel, effectually preventing our seeing what was going on in that direction. Within our special pew, which had curtains more or less drawn, we sat round with our feet at proper times on good high hassocks. When we knelt we all turned round and faced the sides of the pew, and my juvenile sorrows were sometimes great towards the end of the Litany. The fatigue from kneeling on the top of my unsteady perch produced faintness, and I well remember my anxieties increasing with the “odd” feeling till I mustered courage to announce to my eldest sister, whom I held in considerable awe, that I did not feel very well; and measures were taken accordingly. The pew was said to be just over where the soldiers were buried who were killed during the Parliamentarian war at the Battle of Buttington, a locality in the same parish; but on an occasion of some repairs being made, the flooring was discovered to be laid on, or close above the live rock, which rendered this view inaccurate. The surface of the ground was immediately below the floor, and as the family pew had on its east side one of the great east windows of the church, and on the north side a smaller one, both with small panes ill-leaded, and one with a very insufficiently fastened small window, our Sunday devotions in winter were anything but comfortable.

I believe the rural congregation behaved with great propriety, though certainly on one occasion it struck me that a reverence during the creed at the name of Pontius Pilate on the part of the wife of my father’s farm-bailiff, was somewhat out of place. But we were free from such lapses in decency of arrangement as occurred elsewhere. The pigeons did not roost in the tower, neither did a turkey sit on her eggs in the pulpit, which, considering that the time of incubation for the turkey hen is four weeks, must have interfered considerably with the due performance of service. Neither were we, so far as I remember, scandalised by attendance of dogs in church, whether avowedly accompanying their masters or making a voyage of discovery as to where their clerical owner might have vanished. And certainly we did not have the disgraceful circumstance which occurred in another church with which I was acquainted, of two ladies of good social position in the parish walking up to the rails of the communion table to receive the sacrament, followed by their great Newfoundland dog!

One practice—certainly objectionable, but perhaps not unusual in country parishes where the church was also used as the week-day schoolroom—was putting the bags holding the provisions which the children brought with them for their dinners on the communion table. I do not think that this was so very shocking, for no irreverence was intended. A table was a table in those days, and not an “Altar,” and looking back on the matter it does not appear clear where else the food could have been safely placed. I fancy there was no regular vestry and, excepting the floor, or the seats of the pews, there does not seem to me to have been any other place of moderately safe deposit. However, by and by a room was hired as a schoolroom, and the church was freed from the presence of the children and their dinners. I well remember our going over in form to hold some sort of an examination, which was wound up by my father (who was certainly better fitted to examine witnesses from the magistrate’s bench than to probe for what information our little uncivilised urchins possessed) electrifying the audience by desiring to know whether his examinee knew the use of a pocket-handkerchief. My mother was a more efficient aid by paying the schooling of all our own cottagers’ children, and also in allaying strife. On one occasion, when a woman wished to remove her children from the parish school because they were better taught at a recently established Unitarian school, she dexterously overcame the difficulty by stating she meddled with nobody’s conscience, but if the children went to the parish school she paid, and if they did not go she didn’t. We heard no more on the subject.

Some of our customs were very pretty. On Palm Sunday, that is the Sunday before Easter Sunday, sometimes known in our part and the district as “Flowering Sunday,” it was the custom to dress the graves with flowers. Friends of the family came from a long distance. A son of our head-gardener would come down from Scotland for the occasion, and the wealth of yellow daffodils and white narcissus, which grew by the Wye, close to the little church of Llancaut, helped greatly towards the decoration. Two Crown Imperials were a greatly admired addition which, season permitting, appeared to ornament one special grave. The “flowering” was a touching and pleasing remembrance of the friends whose bodies rested below, until in after years the custom gradually arose of placing artificial flowers along with the fresh blossoms, and then followed the much to be deprecated practice of putting little cases of flowers of tinsel, or anything that was approved of, which might remain on the grave. At Christmas time we had the real old-fashioned church decorations of good large boughs of holly, with plenty of red berries, mistletoe, laurel, and anything evergreen of a solid sort. The squire (i.e., my father) contributed a cartload of evergreen branches, and as a matter of course, they were applied largely to ornamenting our corner pew with more regard to appearance than comfort.

The service was performed simply, as was customary in those days, without any music excepting the singing of the hymns, but as nothing was omitted, and there was, I believe, no curate, it must have been rather fatiguing to the vicar, and it certainly was a terribly long business especially for those not always in good health, if they stayed for the Communion Service on the rare occasions on which it was administered. The drive from the Park to the bottom of the hill on which the Church stood, was upwards of two miles. Then came a wearying walk up the hill until this became so steep that in the Churchyard there were successive little arrangements of steps to help us up the ascent. Within, it seems to me, that the clergyman neither excused himself, nor us, anything that might have lightened the strain, bodily and mental, to the younger attendants. The creed of St. Athanasius was duly gone through as well as the Litany, and addresses, which nowadays are cut very short, came at full length. When, after the return drive, we got safely home, I will not say but that our spiritual state might have been better had our bodily condition been less open to the unsettling influence of a desire for a much-needed meal.

One pleasure of the high days was having the fine old hymns for Easter or Christmas, which no bad singing can spoil, as a variety on Sternhold and Hopkins, but I still bear in mind the absolute depression caused by that doleful production, the hymn called “The Lamentation of a Sinner.” To this day it seems to me that it would be better for such a composition to be omitted from our service.

Although it appears to be the correct thing for those who have been before the public in later life to have reminiscences (or for their biographer to invent them), of their precocious piety, I cannot remember that I was ever much given that way. I think that I was as a child kept in steady paths of proper behaviour, and amongst the items taught was certainly scrupulous observance of the fifth commandment in all its branches. Any deviation from truth was another point, the wickedness of which was most sedulously inculcated; and I should say that from my earliest days I was thoroughly well grounded in as much simple and necessary religious information as my small head could carry.

But I did not indulge in fine sentiments, felt or expressed, and I think that my first absolute feeling on religious matters was roused when in one of our spring visits to London, I went regularly on Sunday morning with the family to attend the service at the Vere Street Chapel, where Mr. Scobell was then vicar, and some clergyman of high standing occasionally preached. One thing that was very charming to a girl who had not heard anything of the kind before, was the hymn singing. The splendid hymn “Thou art the way,” imprinted itself on my mind, as likewise a part of a sermon by Mr. Scobell, on the basis of our trust in God. He enumerated various of the high characteristics of the Deity; His boundless power, His holiness and other characteristics of His majesty. With the mention of each characteristic he put the question, “Does this give you a claim for acceptance?” until he came to the climax, “His love,” with the words “but His love, that you may trust.” Perhaps if the good man had known how these words would abide to old age as a comfort to one who was then amongst the youngest of his congregation, it would have given him pleasure.

The Archbishop of Dublin, the celebrated Dr. Whately, also preached at this Chapel, and I heard him deliver his grand sermon on “the doubts leading to the assured belief of St. Thomas.” I suppose this time was what in some circles would have been called my “awakening,” but we in our family neither thought nor spoke of these things; and any allusion to such matters would have brought on me (possibly very rightly) an awakening of another kind, which would have entirely disinclined me to favour the family with any religious views, beyond what might be shown in behaving with propriety and above all doing as I was bid to the best of my ability.

Reverting to early recollections of ecclesiastical matters, or things in which the clergy might have been expected, ex-officio, to interfere, there certainly was room for improvement, but this was not peculiar to the olden time. Some of the curious circumstances of which accounts reached my young ears are better forgotten. One thing that I remember was the very different position relating to sporting, and also to the divergence in dress from the great precision now in vogue. A clergyman of somewhat high position, being, I suppose, pressed for time on one occasion, performed the funeral service in his “pink” visible beneath his surplice. Another, subsequently a favourite with all his poorer parishioners for his kindness, when a candidate for orders, was encouraged by his father to the necessary mental labour by the promise that if he passed his examination he should have a double-barrelled gun! In a locality not far from the edge of Monmouthshire, I myself saw the incumbent of one of the small livings with his coat off loading a manure cart! He comes back to my memory as doing the work quietly and gravely, and with no more appearance of derogation than if he had been budding the roses in his garden; still the work must have taken a considerable amount of time from the purposes of his ordination.

The “Oxford” or “Tractarian Movement” of 1833-45[^[15]] made an enormous commotion, and perhaps for a retired locality nowhere more than in our own parish.

After the death of the old vicar, amongst a succession of clergy the most noted was Dr. Armstrong (presented 1846).[^[16]] With him came the full tide of the Oxford Movement, and as he was a highly accomplished man, eloquent in the pulpit, of charming society manner in the drawing-room, and with his heart fixed on driving his own views of reform and restoration forward, the holders of differing ecclesiastical views in the parish were soon very thoroughly by the ears. My father as “squire” and chief resident landowner had always tried (much to his own discomfort at times) to uphold the cause of decency and order. But with the new arrangements came all sorts of trouble from an excess of ceremonial, and peace seemed to have vanished. The attempted setting up of confession caused much trouble, and difference of lay and clerical opinion in the restoration of the Church was a fertile cause of ill-feeling. One special point was the right claimed by the vicar to prevent any of the general congregation entering the church by the chancel door. We had always gone in that way, and it was not convenient to reach the family pew by going round two sides of the church, so my father stuck to his legal rights, and the door was not visibly fastened. But one unlucky day when we, the ladies of the family, arrived as usual and tried to go in, to our consternation it appeared impossible to turn the latch. It was a remarkably pretty handle—I suppose an imitation of mediæval ironwork—but it required more than common woman’s strength to make this unlucky invention act in admitting us to the church. However, we were not to be kept out by this ingenious device. Muscularly I was remarkably strong from working in wood and stone, and I was perfectly happy to forward my father’s wishes, so thenceforward for many a week I went to church with a round ruler in my pocket, and slipping this into the hanging bit of ironwork, I easily raised the latch and gave my mother and sisters entrance to church. I did not object to my part of the ceremony in the least—rather liked it, in fact—but looking back from graver age it seems to me that it would have been better if the vicar had not driven the squire to defend the rights of the congregation by such forcible measures. After a while the latch (or the vicar’s view on the subject) was loosened, and we obtained entrance without, like the violent, being obliged to take it by force.

The real troubles of the times were endless. It was even possible for a sincerely religious man to absent himself from the reception of communion on the ground that he was not able to participate with Christian comfort and in a charitable frame of mind. Within the church building itself the condition of things was not satisfactory. The openings beneath the very “open” seats, whereby was secured free circulation for dogs and draughts, were unpleasant in various ways.

The appointment of our skilled and accomplished vicar, Dr. Armstrong, to the Bishopric of Grahamstown in South Africa, for which he was eminently fitted, was hailed by many of us with heartfelt gratitude. In later years, under the kindly care of the Rev. Percy Burd (successor in 1862 of the Rev. Alan Cowburn) who, without thinking it necessary to push everything to extremities, attended with the utmost care to proprieties of detail of worship in church, to social friendliness, and to care of the poor, we passed along in paths of comfort and peace, for which some of us were deeply grateful.

Amongst various parish or local matters, of which the bodily presence has, to a great degree, passed away, and the remembrance that at one time such things were has probably faded from most of the minds in which they ever held a place, are turnpike gates, with their adjoining toll-houses; also the parish stocks and the parish pound.

In parochial arrangements in my day two great improvements arose, one of which has now long been a regular part of parish work, but was new at least to us. This was a women’s clothing club. The other was the commencement of the plan of lending books to those who otherwise would rarely have seen them. It was introduced by my sister, Georgiana E. Ormerod, when little more than a girl, quite at her own expense. It was continued by her without any pecuniary assistance (unless may be sometimes some small co-operation from myself) to the end of her long life.

The clothing club was set on foot under some difficulties by the wife of one of the clergy resident in our parish, for the goods procurable at Chepstow, the nearest town, were by no means remarkable for their quality, and Mrs. Morgan thought herself bound to do the best in her power for her poor subscribers. So the matter was accommodated (not without a good deal of grumbling from Chepstow shopkeepers about money being taken out of their pockets) by part of the goods brought from Bristol (where excellent material was to be had) for the women to choose from, being sent previous to “club day” to Mr. Morgan’s large and commodious house. In those days, so far as I know, the plan of sending the women with tickets to the shops had not been adopted, and our method, though exceedingly laborious to the lady manager of the club, was good for the women, for it ensured that their choice was confined to the very best materials, all of a useful kind, and at the lowest possible prices.

When a growing up girl, perhaps about sixteen, my sister Georgiana thought it would be a pleasure to the children of our own cottagers to have some entertaining books, and she began by lending them from the small store which had gradually come down from the elders of our generation. She chose carefully what she thought would be of interest, and very soon the elder children took to reading, or sometimes the fathers would read aloud to their families. My sister always either read the books herself or knew the nature of the contents before lending them, and when done with they were brought back and exchanged. The borrowing rapidly spread beyond our own cottagers till it included our farmers and their friends at Gloucester and Bristol. The books were almost invariably treated with all reasonable care, and scarcely ever was one a-missing. Besides the entertainment, they acted as an antidote to the attractions of the public-house. It was a great delight to my sister when she had a request for a book, because Jack or Dick was home from his ship or on a holiday, and they wanted a book that would keep him from the “public.” I attribute much of my sister’s success to the care with which, even after her book-lending had extended to far-distant localities, she chose the books. On one occasion when she had made a donation of books of her own choosing to the Lending Library, Bethnal Green, London, she was greatly pleased to hear that the boys and girls had passed the word round amongst the factories of the entertaining books that had arrived. Those we found suited best (for I was in some degree her assistant) were accounts of real incidents made into narratives. Ballantyne’s earlier books with accounts of the fire brigade, post office, lighthouse and the like were great favourites, perhaps none the less for the conversations being at times a trifle vulgar; but when a writer took up some special view, as of teetotalism, high-churchism, or any other specialism, we dropped him. Stories of olden times, such as the Plague in London, or the Great Fire; risings in Henry the Eighth’s time; wars of the time of Charles the First and Cromwell; forest troubles of the time of William Rufus, and the like—told as stories, with the facts correct although the thread on which they were strung was imaginary—were always favourites. We seldom lent absolutely religious books unless they were asked for, and then we took care that they should be of a solid and interesting sort; but whether sacred or secular the number of books lent or given for lending in the course of the year was very great.

My sister was a highly accomplished woman, a good linguist and historian, and a careful scriptural student. As a scientific entomologist and a Fellow of the Entomological Society of London, she was a co-operator with me in my work. She devoted her artistic talent for many years to the execution of excellent diagrams, serviceable for agricultural purposes, of insects injurious to farm and orchard produce, some of which she made over to the Royal Agricultural Society, but the greater number she presented to friends interested in lessening the amount of loss through insect injury, and to Agricultural Colleges. From girlhood to old age she unceasingly carried on her chosen work of distribution of useful healthy literature. She asked no aid, nor made the considerable sums she expended, and the careful cordial thought she gave to this work, matter of public notoriety, but in her last moments it brought a smile to her face when I told her that I purposed to continue her work.

My father when living near Chester had the first news on a Sunday morning before church time, of the Duke of Wellington’s success, and that the battle of Waterloo had been fought and won. After service he mounted on a tombstone and announced the glorious news to the assembled congregation. In my early days in Gloucestershire, a neighbour, Captain Fenton, was at times thought to be tedious in his recurrence to the charge of the Scots Greys in which he had served, but it was a grand memory all the same.

In a much humbler sphere and at a different stage of the same great struggle an interesting part was played by a very decent woman—afterwards a servant in our family—at the burial of Sir John Moore at Corunna. She was proud to remember that she was one of those who held a lanthorn at the ceremony alluded to in Wolfe’s poem:—

“We buried him darkly at dead of night

* * * * * *

By the struggling moonbeams’ misty light

And the lanthorn dimly burning.”

PLATE IX.
Map of the Banks of the Wye.
Sedbury Park Property, the darkly shaded area between
Severn and Wye.
(pp. [33] and [38].)

CHAPTER V
SEVERN AND WYE

The locality round which most of the recollections of nearly half my life centre is in the district of Gloucestershire, between the Severn and the Wye (opposite Chepstow in Monmouthshire, plate IX.), almost at the extremity of the peninsula, sometimes not inaptly called the “Forest Peninsula,” as some of the “Hundreds” comprised in the more widely extended area stretching on to the Forest of Dean near Newnham, are technically called the “Forest Hundreds,” although what is commonly thought of (at the present day) as the Forest of Dean, has long since ceased to be connected, popularly speaking, with the lower extremity of the peninsula. This is bounded on the two sides by the Severn and the Wye respectively; and at intervals it presents to the Wye considerable frontage of high cliffs of mountain limestone, and to the Severn red marl, capped more or less with lias. It terminates at the junction of the two rivers in a small area, which is an island at high water, but accessibly connected with the mainland at low water. Here, that is on the rocky ground at the point of confluence of the Wye with the Severn, were still existing in my time (that is up to 1873) the few but massive remains of the Hermitage and Chapels, popularly known collectively as the Chapel of St. Tecla or Treacle Island (plate [X].). The name as given by William of Worcester in full form is “Capella Sancti Teriaci Anachoretæ.” He describes the locality likewise as “The Rok Seynt Tryacle,” but not having now the opportunity of consulting his observations, I am not able to say whether the ancient chronicler gives any reason for the building of this little but massive knot of buildings, or for its overthrow, which must have been a somewhat laborious task, and from the thickness and the solidly built nature of the walls, one that required co-operation. In the short account given by my father in “Strigulensia” from which I borrow some part of these notes, he says, “It would be vain to attempt identification of the Hermit whose name is associated with the ruins, and who does not appear in the calendar of saints, but he occurs as follows in the “Valor Ecclesiasticus” of Hen. VIII., vol. ii. p. 501,” “Capella Sancti Triaci valet nihil, quâ stat in mare et nulla proficua inde proveniunt.” Whether modern skilled archæologists may have thrown light on the early history of the anchorite and his Severn and seaweed-girt chapel I do not know, but few places could be found less attractive for the archæeological picnic-excursions which have become fashionable of late years. Even to my brothers and myself, accustomed as we were to Severn mud, and to picking our way fairly safely over and amongst the coarse brown slippery seaweed fronds (chiefly, if I remember rightly, the Fucus serratus), the passage over such parts as were not then submerged was an exceedingly muddy progress, needing a deal of care lest we should take a sudden slide into one of the little rock basins concealed by the “kelp” or other coarse brown seaweed. But once arrived, it was very pleasant to sit in the sunshine and enjoy the glorious view down the Estuary of the Severn, the fresh salt air blowing round us, or otherwise employ ourselves to our fancy. From careful measurements we found the length of the chapel to have been 31 feet 6 inches, the width 14 feet 6 inches, and the thickness of the walls, wherever sufficient remained for observation, approximately 3 feet.[^[17]] We had to be quick in our operations and our return had to be kept in mind, or we should have had to be fetched off in a boat, and under all circumstances it was probably best for the sake of appearances that our walk home should be as far as possible by the fields or under the cliffs where minutiæ as to condition of boots, &c., were unimportant.

The characteristics of the scenery of each of the rivers are wholly different. The Severn above Beachley and Aust (in former days the land-points of the much-used “Old Passage”) spreads into a wide area of water, perhaps about a mile wide at the narrowest, and at high tide forming a noble lake-like expanse. The Wye, on the contrary, as shown in the map (plate [IX].), takes its sinuous and narrow course between successive promontories, projecting alternately from the Gloucestershire and Monmouthshire banks.

Ruined Anchorite’s Chapel of St. Tecla, on the Chapel Rock
where Severn and Wye meet.
From a sketch by Miss E.A. Ormerod.
(p. [33].)

Severn Cliffs, Sedbury Park.
(p. [40].)

Across some considerable portion of the river a quarter of a mile or so above Beachley, on the Gloucestershire side, a rocky ledge of limestone called “The Lyde” projects at low tide, causing a backwater of which the steady roar can be heard at a long distance.[^[18]] Cormorants on the rock, and conger-eels below it, were regular inhabitants or visitors—the former presumably attracted by the latter, which served to some degree also as food to the fishermen, although pronounced to be “slobbery-like.”

The muddy colour of the Severn was not in itself picturesque—at least I have never heard the point mentioned with admiration; but to me, born as I was by this noblest of our rivers, it seemed to convey a comfortable idea of homeliness and strength. Sometimes, however, in the early morning or in certain conditions of light, the deep rosy colouring was almost as if the whole width of water had been changed to blood; then the effect was very splendid, and as wonderful still as it must have been in days long gone by to Queen Boadicea:—

“Still rolls thy crimson flood in glory on

As when of old its deep ensanguined dye

Told to the warrior Queen her falling throne,

Her people’s death, the foemen’s victory.”

But, independently of other considerations, a bend in the river was of great local service. It formed a bay of about perhaps three-quarters of a mile across, bounded to the west by our own and the Beachley cliffs, and further protected, or endangered, on the southern side by a low range of rocks running out into the river. With the rising tide the import shipping to Gloucester, which in those days was extensive, put in here to be searched by the Custom House officials. At that time (excepting tugs) it was entirely composed of sailing vessels mostly laden with corn, wine, and timber, and the mixed fleet moving about in the bay with colours flying was a very lively sight. In due time they passed on—the three-masters, ships, and barques, or the graceful chasse-marées, taking the lead; brigs and schooners following, and sloops and—if weather permitted—Severn trows bringing up the rear. These, however, as they differed very little in formation from canal barges, required tolerably fair or at least quiet weather to allow them to proceed in safety. The procession of shipping came along almost beneath our cliffs, the deep channel being on that side, and perhaps it was as well that they were no nearer, or the nautical remarks might have been more often audible to the young people than was desirable!

A special convenience to ourselves was a little creek under the cliffs, called in those parts a “pill” (presumably from the Welsh pwll or pool), which allowed of coals being run in a sloop across from Bristol and carted up to the house by a shorter road than that from Chepstow.

FIG. (A).—PUTCHER FOR CATCHING SALMON.

Salmon fishing was carried on partly by nets from fishing boats, partly by rows of baskets known as “putts” or “putchers.” The boats during the boat fishing lay above the edge of the water on the sloping and slippery frontage of the shore. When the tide served for fishing, the men went down from the village above the cliffs to their boats across the flat and precipitously-edged grass, between the base of the low cliffs and the sloping shore. Each man wriggled with might and main at his boat till he loosened its adhesion to the tenacious mud and started it on its slide with its bows foremost towards the water. Once off, of course the pace accelerated; its owner, running behind, held on and clambered in as best he could, and the two arrived safely and with a great jolt on the water. The boats then formed in line, secured by being tied stern to stern at about a boat’s length from each other, and presumably anchored also, but this I do not remember. The net of each boat was lowered, and nothing further occurred till a fish was captured; then the net was lifted, the fish, shining in all the beauty of its silvery scales, taken out, and the net lowered again. These were the best fish; those that were caught in the putts were “drowned” fish, and unless the fishermen were fairly on the alert to secure them before the falling tide had left the baskets long uncovered, there was a very good chance of the eyes being pecked out or the fish otherwise disfigured by birds.

The putcher or basket fishing was carried on by means of very open extinguisher-shaped baskets each long enough to hold, it can hardly be said accommodate, a good-sized salmon. The frame or stand on which these baskets were fixed was formed of two rows of strong poles or upright pieces of wood, running down the shore, across the narrow of the river, for many yards, firmly fixed between high and low tide level, at such a distance as would allow the baskets to reach from one side to the other. Horizontal poles or pieces of wood connected the upright poles, and to these horizontal supports the baskets were attached, so as to form rows with the open ends of the extinguishers facing up stream and all ranged one storey above the other. The fish were drifted into the basket trap, and of course, though they might injure themselves in their struggles, and to some degree their market value, they were powerless to effect their escape and withdraw backward against the set of the tide.[^[19]]

The much larger form of basket described by Mr. Buckland as “putts,” and as being used for catching flat fish, was of a slightly different make—formed only of two instead of three pieces; one large piece, so wide at the opening that I, as a girl, had no difficulty in standing within it, and a very much smaller piece, forming a kind of nose. This little adjunct was, I believe, taken off and searched by the fishermen for what it contained. To my sister Georgiana and myself it was a great pleasure to go down to where the two great eel-putts stood on clean shore at very low tide below the longest row of salmon-putchers, and search for anything that was to be found. My sister was a good conchologist. We searched for seaweed, &c., &c., and thereby got a deal of pleasant amusement. The fishermen, who knew us well, made no objection to our investigations, though, as one of the men remarked on one occasion, “It was not everybody they liked to see near the putts.”

In our immediate neighbourhood the fishermen were quiet—at least I never heard of their getting into very objectionable difficulties—but about eight miles higher up the river, near Lydney, things in this respect were by no means all that could be wished. On one occasion they captured the Fishery Inspector himself—whose duty it was to ascertain that the meshes were not below a certain measurement—and secured him in the nets. Another time somebody (who, unluckily for him, bore some resemblance to the obnoxious inspector) got nearly sloughed up in one of the great marsh ditches, and would have been left to live or die as might chance—probably the latter—but for the arrival of timely help. My father being one of the acting magistrates of the district, we used to hear from time to time of these and other “mauvaises plaisanteries” in the neighbourhood of the Forest of Dean.

On reference to the portion of the Ordnance Map (plate [IX].) it will be seen that there is a broad band marked “mud,” of about a sixth of a mile in width at the widest part and extending for about a mile and a half by the side of the deep channel of the Severn, between it and the cliffs of the Beachley and Sedbury Bay.

The most remarkable capture of which I have any recollection as taking place in the waters, or rather in the mud of the Severn, was said to be a “Bottle-nosed whale,” or Dolphin, Delphinus tursio, Fabr., but it was so many decades of years ago, that I have no means now of turning to any record for verification of the species. The capture itself excited a deal of local interest. It was on a summer morning that one of my brothers, enlivening his vacation studies, as was his custom, by watching through his telescope anything of interest that might be going on amongst the shipping or elsewhere, saw something like an enormous fish struggling and “flopping” on the Beachley pier of the old Passage Ferry. As a matter of course, we young folks set off after luncheon to have our share of the sight, and found the creature had been captured when lying helpless, or half dead, in the mud at the Aust side of the Ferry, and had been towed across behind a boat. At this distance of time I only remember the whale- or dolphin-like shape of the animal, its great size, and that it was apparently of a greyish colour; but this item might very likely be from its being coated with Severn mud. In Bell’s “British Quadrupeds” the greatest length recorded of various specimens found in England is 12 feet. The colour of the back is black, with a purplish tinge, becoming dusky on the sides, and dirty white on the belly. This species is considered rare in England and it is of some interest, in referring to the locality of what may be called our own capture, that “The first account which we have of its appearance on our own shores is that of John Hunter,” and it was taken with its young one “on the sea coast near Berkeley”; that is about two or three miles higher up the left bank of the Severn than the Aust Cliffs. Another specimen was found in the river Dart in Devonshire, and, it was stated, “was killed with difficulty, the poor animal having suffered for four hours the attacks of eight men armed with spears and two guns, and assisted by dogs. When wounded it made a noise like the bellowing of a bull.”[^[20]] In the case of the Old Passage specimen the poor creature was also most barbarously treated, chiefly by being attacked by the running of hay forks, pitch forks, and the like, into its body, and I remember a good deal of chopping with hatchets or axes, but it was quite quiet and, it was to be hoped, was past feeling pain. Immense popular interest, of course, was excited as to the precise nature of the unusual “take,” as to whether it was a Leviathan, or possibly the kind of fish that swallowed Jonah—but the affair ended by the creature being shipped off to Bristol to be turned into a little money for the boatmen who secured it, and no other cetacean was taken during the remainder of the years in which Sedbury was my home.

The most observable of the seaweeds, which grew on the rocks or large stones, more or less in the muddy salt water between tide levels at the mouth of the Severn, were of the genus Fucus, which at one time was much used in the making of kelp. The ornamental kinds always appeared to me to be unaccountably absent. They were not to be expected to make this place their habitat, but, still, their almost total absence in the masses of drift matter left by the retiring tide struck me as curious. In my most successful searches I do not remember ever being fortunate enough to secure even a fragment of the lovely Oak-leaf, Delesseria, with its bright, rosy-veined leaves from as much as 4 inches to 8 inches in length placed along their cylindrical stem, or the Peacock seaweed, Padina pavonea, with its concentric markings. Of Iceland Moss there might be a battered morsel. The general composition of the driftage was composed of little except what might be grown in the neighbourhood, mixed with sugar cane or packing material thrown from the vessels. This, however, seemed to me of some interest in connection with the set of the currents. Here, however, I am out of my element, but as my brother Dr. Ormerod employed me as a collector, I am not personally responsible.

The distinct varieties of soil, and also the geographical and the geological surroundings of Sedbury, were unusually favourable to natural history investigations, whether of fauna and flora of the present day, or of fossil remains of saurians and shells. These were easily accessible as they fell from the frontage of lias, or the narrow horizontal strip in the cliffs (plate [IX].) facing the Severn, well known to the geologists as the “bone bed.” At the highest part the cliffs were about 140 feet, calculating from medium tide level. There the face had been quarried back for a supply of lias limestone, used in enlarging the offices of the house, and in so doing had laid bare a fine bed of so-called “Venus” shells. We used to find beautiful specimens of those shells, irrespective of this extra fine deposit, and also of “patens,” oysters of some kind, which we sought for unweariedly, hammer in hand. The greatest matters of interest, however, were the saurian, or the fish remains, of which we sometimes found a plentiful supply of specimens of little value, and now and then some of considerable interest.

PLATE XI.
Roman Pottery, found in Sedbury Park.
From a drawing by Miss E. A. Ormerod.
(p. [18].)

Saurian from the Lias, Sedbury Cliffs.
(p. [41].)

The Sedbury cliffs lie nearly north of the Aust cliff, and contain the Aust bone bed, from which the Severn, about a mile wide, or somewhat more, there divides them. Geologically, in all important characteristics, I believe the two cliffs correspond. Of this bone bed it is noted by Sir Charles Lyell[^[21]]: “In England the Lias is succeeded by conformable strata of red and green marl or clay. There intervenes, however, both in the neighbourhood of Exmouth, in Devonshire, and in the cliffs of Westbury and Aust, in Gloucestershire, on the banks of the Severn, a dark-coloured stratum, well known by the name of the ‘bone bed.’ It abounds in the remains of saurians and fish, and was formerly classed as the lowest bed of Lias; but Sir P. Egerton has shown that it should be referred to as the Upper New Red Sandstone.” The reasons given are not of interest to the general reader. From the fallen débris of this we collected vertebræ, single, or sometimes a few in connection, also bones of the paddles, and any amount of teeth, also coprolites, the excrementitious matter of the living owners of the bones. These were in great quantity, but I never remember that they were other than irregular lumps, and though some of us were much given to grinding and polishing stones that afforded hope of an ornamental result, it never occurred to us to exercise our talents on these lumps, which might have indicated in their undigested contents some evidence of the diet of their consumers.

The only valuable or interesting specimen of Saurian remains (that is of an animal in moderate degree of entirety) fell from the cliffs after I had ceased to reside there. This was a slab of Lias about 3 feet long by 2 feet broad, and about 7 to 9 inches thick (plate [XI].) The history of its fall, as given to me in a letter from Dr. John Yeats, F.R.G.S., then residing at Chepstow, dated September, 1882, was, that “From one of the ledges, or from the top of a slip or subsidence, a fir tree was blown down during the autumn of 1882.... The fossil was found beneath the roots,” and “the fossil remains were laid bare by a conchoidal fracture.” A few detached vertebræ were collected, but unfortunately no part of the head was secured. Of this specimen Professor Richard Owen was good enough to report to Dr. Yeats on the 24th of May, 1883, as follows: “From the concavity of the articular surfaces of the vertebræ, I infer it to be part of an ichthyosaurus, and the number and character of the ribs agree with that deduction. If any part of the jaws or teeth should be found near the locality it would decide the matter.”

This fossil is now in the possession of Sir William H. Marling, at Sedbury.

The surface of the cliffs was of a very mixed nature, with ledges of stone projecting slightly in places, and from the effect of weathering, landslips, leading at times to inconvenience, were not infrequent. As we knew the nature of the ground we were careful about going near the edge of the top of the cliff, where a precipice or a crack showed danger, but it happened more than once that a bullock or calf, attracted by food to be found amongst the trees or bushes which in some places clothed the slanting upper part, was tempted beyond safe footing, and toppled down to the bottom to its own destruction. On one occasion, on returning from a walk, my sister Georgiana and I, not having noticed a fall from the cliffs, were cut off by one of these slips from any comfortable advance. It was not a case of danger, but a choice between much wet and dirt from Severn mud, or very considerable discomfort of another sort, as the slip had brought down with it brambles, &c., &c., most unpleasant to brave for the sake of dryness. We preferred the wet passage, feeling our way with our feet through the muddy water from one good-sized stone to another, and presently arrived safely above the high-tide level, but to those who did not know that beneath the muddy surface there was a sound footing if sought for, the little episode might have been unpleasant.

PLATE XII.
Royal Mail starting from Old General Post Office, London.
Original lent by Arthur Ackermann & Son, 191, Regent Street, W.

CHAPTER VI
TRAVELLING BY COACH, FERRY, AND RAILWAY

In my early days much of the passenger transit of South Wales and the south-westerly part of England passed over the old Passage Ferry across the Severn from Beachley to Aust, and consequently the coaches all passed our park gates. It was said there were fourteen coaches a day. On this I am unable to offer an opinion, but there were a great number, and amongst them were two mails. The road to the head of the old Passage Pier, from Chepstow, was about three and a half miles in length, and very hilly (going up one ascent, long or short as the case might be, to go down another), with the exception of two lengths of flat “galloping ground.” These well deserved their name, and I can still remember the swing of violent speed at which the high, piled-up vehicle tore past us, causing children and accompanying dogs to allow it a very free passage. The journey was not without risk of disaster, for on one occasion in turning a sharp angle, on the incline of a steep shore-hill, without due care, the coach lurched to the outward side of the curve and made a distribution of its outside passengers on the greensward by our park gates. It certainly would have been a great help in those days if the wish (though not exactly as he expressed it) of the driver of one of the more old-fashioned of the coaches could have been carried out, and “a little akyduct” made to convey the road from the top of one hill to the next, thus avoiding the dangerous descent.

The view from the tops of the coaches as they galloped along the flat road at the summit of the Severn cliffs down to the Ferry pier was very beautiful. On one side was the Severn, a mile wide at the narrowest, with the red Aust cliffs opposite, the Sedbury cliffs above; and, in the distance, about thirty miles away up the river, the hills, near or beyond Gloucester, could be faintly seen. On the other side, about a field or two from the road, was the lowest part of the Wye at its point of juncture with the Severn, and the noble estuary itself opening out from about four miles width till it was lost to view in the distance of the Severn Sea.

TIME-TABLE ILLUSTRATING THE METHOD OF TRAVELLING 200 YEARS AGO.

The Old Passage, though probably as well managed as was reasonably possible, was, in many respects, a most inconvenient necessity. On one occasion, while fourteen passengers were crossing in a sailing boat, every living thing, except one dog, perished in mid-transit. It was on a stormy Sunday in September, 1838, and the boat was heavily laden with horses as well as the passengers. How the accident happened was never known. One of my brothers had been watching the boat from our cliffs, and on looking again, after a minute or so, she was gone. The conjectural cause of the disaster was that one of the horses had become unruly. The assignment of the disaster to a judgment for travelling on Sunday, may be looked on as a state of feeling very desirable to be removed by changing times, which have brought a larger charitableness and greater common sense.

PLATE XIII.
Old Chepstow Bridge, rebuilt in 1816, with Post-chaise crossing it.
From an old picture signed W. Williams, 1783.

A novel custom was associated with the Old Passage. A man suspected of possible infection of hydrophobia, was put into the salt water, and towed about in the Severn at the stern of a boat. In the event of a man having been bitten by a stray dog, this operation made his village acquaintances much easier in their minds about him. They had also the fun, and in any case the patient would not be the worse for a thorough good washing!

The appliances of the ferry were a steam boat and various sailing boats, including one known as the Mail-boat, as well as on the Beachley side, an apparatus acting as a telegraph. This consisted of an arrangement of board which, when at rest, resembled a wooden window shutter about a couple of yards square, fastened to one of the buildings; and, by some code of signals of an exceedingly simple sort, requisite directions were conveyed across the river as to the boat service.

On our side there was one solidly built pier, serviceable for shipment of passengers or goods at all states of the tide, and accessible for all kinds of carriage use from the good road which terminated at the top in front of a small kind of hotel; it likewise had the desirable security, for the greater part of its length, of strong posts with chains between them. On the Aust side there was a high- and also a low-water pier, not far apart, a little way below the inn, and if the tide served for boats to reach these all went fairly well after disembarking, but it was a different matter at half-tide. The half-tide pier was a considerable distance from the others—a quarter or half a mile away beneath the cliffs, and mud and stones and the roughest imaginable affairs in the guise of road had to be got through or over on the way to the inn. The effect of this on the springs, paint, &c., of a good Long Acre-built barouche, when by some unhappy necessity it had to be committed to such a method of transit, may be easily imagined. The passage for a carriage was, at the best, not well arranged. A muster of fishermen or boatmen was made, and the carriage was turned on the pier and dragged more or less rapidly on board, and there, I presume, secured from movement, but, certainly, by no means from danger, for part of the freight might consist of half a dozen or a dozen bullocks, which shifted to one side or the other as the vessel lurched. On the whole the transit by the Old Passage Ferry, so well known in former days, was one link in a chain of necessities which left much room for changing times to improve.

The great change in the method of travelling may be said to have been publicly inaugurated in the spring of 1830[^[22]] by the opening of the Canterbury and Whitstable line of railway.

In the same year the Bill for the Warrington railway was passed by both Houses of Parliament, and permission was also granted to construct a line from Leicester to Swannington, Robert Stephenson being appointed chief engineer to both lines. But the great railway event of that year was the opening, with an imposing ceremonial, on September 15th, of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. This left nothing to be desired in showing high appreciation of the importance of advance in methods of locomotion. Although a complete success, from the point of view of capabilities of safe and also of rapid travelling, the day was one of great trouble and anxiety. As the train neared Manchester the mob crowded on the lines, and while to have gone forward at any moderate pace would have been death to hundreds, on the other hand, the slow movement allowed the populace to swarm on the carriages and display their political aversion to “the Duke” (Wellington) by throwing brickbats, and by other objectional irregularities. The riot was not so much remembered as the accident which resulted in the death of Huskisson. I can recollect the unsophisticated story of something being seen going along the line at such a speed that it was hardly discernible; and also that a horn was used for train signalling in place of the steam whistle. Carelessness of life through ignorance of the danger was everywhere conspicuous; discipline was much needed. My father while waiting at a station took pleasure in walking along the line to while away the time. Tying horse-carriages on open trucks was not an unusual practice with carriage-people who could afford to pay for the luxury. My father long travelled in his own carriage thus attached, and stepped from the truck on which it stood to the next, but of course at considerable danger to his person.

PLATE XIV.
A West of England Royal Mail en route.
Original lent by Arthur Ackermann & Son, 191, Regent Street, W.

CHAPTER VII
CHARTIST RISING IN MONMOUTHSHIRE IN 1839

The remembrance of the Chartist[^[23]] rising in Monmouthshire of November, 1839, must have long faded away, except from the minds of the few survivors who were concerned in its suppression, and those of the younger generation who remember it from the anxiety it caused throughout the district. I came among the latter number. My father was an acting magistrate, and at the time alterations were going on in his house at Sedbury Park. I can well remember the surly, disobedient, and generally insubordinate behaviour of the local workmen in the week preceding Sunday, the 3rd of November. With the return of the workmen, in the course of the following week, the face of affairs had however changed. The rising had taken place, and had been thoroughly crushed. Receiving a reverse, they were there and then seized with panic, and fled. Their chief leaders—by name John Frost, Zephaniah Williams, and William Jones, and others not so deeply implicated—were captured, and to us the result was exceedingly satisfactory. The men when they returned were patterns of obedience and as meek as mice. They did not in the least desire the distinction of being known, in a magistrate’s house, to have taken part in an outbreak which had totally failed. They had thought that by Monday or Tuesday the house would be in their hands and our relative positions reversed, and, indeed, it would have been hard to find a house more indefensible against a disciplined mob than ours. Along two sides of the house (plate [I].), ran a broad colonnade of Bath stone, supported by pillars so wide and so placed that in many cases men ascending by ladders put against them, would have been greatly or entirely protected from the discharge of fire-arms from the windows; and the broad flat surface of the top of the colonnade, 10 feet in width, by about 120 feet in length, would have made an admirable mustering ground for scores of men, from which to carry on their unpleasant attacks in conjunction with their allies below. This however we were spared.

The trial of Frost and the other leaders followed speedily by special Commission at Monmouth. It began in the following December and ended in January (1840), with a verdict of guilty of High Treason; and sentence of death according to the treason penalties of the time was pronounced by Lord Chief Justice Tindal as follows:—“That you, John Frost, and you, Zephaniah Williams, and you, William Jones, be taken hence to the place from which you came, and be thence drawn on a hurdle to the place of execution, and that each of you be there hanged by the neck until you be dead, and that afterwards the head of each of you shall be severed from his body, and the body of each, divided into four quarters, shall be disposed of as Her Majesty shall think fit, and may Almighty God have mercy on your souls.” A recommendation to mercy, which was mercifully attended to, was added on behalf of the five least guilty men. The possibility of the horrors of the details of the treason penalties (though much mitigated from those of former days on account of their being carried out on the dead body of the offender) created consternation through the district, and the remembrance has remained with me to this day. However, the capital sentence on Frost and his two special associates was commuted to transportation for life, an act of grace coincident with those extended on the marriage of our late Queen of glorious memory.

Only the above disjointed reminiscences of trouble have remained in my mind through the sixty years which have since elapsed, but the rising was so planned that, if it had succeeded, it would have proved a match to light the smouldering Chartism of the Midlands and the North of England, and even under the circumstances the case was described in the Attorney-General’s address to the Jury at the commencement of the Monmouth trial as follows:

“There has recently been in this County an armed insurrection, the law has been set at defiance; there has been an attempt to take forcible possession of the town of Newport, there has been a conflict between the insurgents and the Queen’s troops; there has been bloodshed, and the loss of many lives. The intelligence of these outrages has caused alarm and dismay throughout the kingdom.”[^[24]]

When divested of the repetitions and technicalities of the reports of the sworn witnesses, and also of the addresses of the Lord Chief Justice and legal authorities, the story of the rising possesses much interest as an account in many of its details of what could not happen in the present day. The mountainous nature of the insurgent locality, the extraordinarily stormy weather which threw the undisciplined thousands out in their calculations, and the short, but (for the time occupied) bloody climax would have formed under such a pen as Sir Walter Scott’s, a narrative of interest almost equal to some of those of the Covenanting troubles.

The part of the County in which the disturbances took place—was what is called the “hill district” of Monmouthshire (plate [XV].), which has been described as an area of triangular form, having for its apex to the south, Risca, a town five miles W.N.W of Newport. The base of the triangle was at a distance of from fifteen to twenty miles in a northerly direction, with the great Beaufort and Nant-y-glo iron works to the west, on the edge of Brecknockshire, and to the east Blaenavon on the Usk in its hilly, or it might be said mountainous, neighbourhood. The area of this hill district is varied with hill and dale, intersected in parts by deep glens, and also by mountain streams, of no inconsiderable force after heavy rains. Picturesquely considered the country is of great beauty, but beneath the surface are rich supplies of coal and iron. For some years before 1839, the mines had been much worked, and the country, instead of being merely inhabited by a small and scattered population, was at the time of the outbreak estimated to contain above 40,000 inhabitants, often, as it was stated, displaying “an extent of ignorance very much to be deplored” and consequently easily led away by the agents of seditious societies and formed into affiliated bodies ready for outbreak when called on.

PLATE XV.
Map showing the District of the Chartist Rising in Monmouth.
Newport near the low right-hand corner above the bend
of the River Usk.

The matured plan of the rising was arranged on the 1st of November at a meeting at a place called Blackwood, where there was a Lodge or Society of Chartists. At this meeting deputies attended, and orders were formulated, that the men should assemble armed on the evening of the 3rd, the following Sunday. There were to be three principal divisions, one under the command of Frost (then living at Blackwood), the other two to be respectively formed of men from the up-country, and men more from the east and north. These divisions were to meet at Risca at a convenient distance from Newport, their destination, which they purposed to reach about two in the morning. They hoped to find the inhabitants asleep, and to carry out their plans at their own convenience; attack the “intended-to-be-surprised” troops at Newport, break down the bridge over the Usk, and stop the mail. The Newport mails in those days were forwarded over the Old Passage of the Severn to Bristol, from which place at a given time they were sent North. The non-arrival of the mails at Birmingham was to have been a sign of success of the Monmouthshire outbreak, and of a general rising in Lancashire, and other parts of the kingdom. Affairs, however, turned out very differently to what they expected. The night between the Sunday and Monday was the darkest and most tempestuous that had been known for years, and consequently though Frost arrived near Risca early in the night, the other divisions were long behind time. Meanwhile Mr. Phillips, the Mayor of Newport, afterwards Sir Thomas Phillips, a firm and intelligent man, well informed of what was going on, had been quietly making preparations, in view of the intelligence received during Sunday. He had given orders to the Superintendent of Police to have a number of Special Constables ready on that evening. A detachment was stationed at the Westgate Hotel, where the Mayor and another magistrate also located themselves about 9 p.m., and remained watching throughout the night. When day dawned on Monday, November 4th, intelligence was received that the insurgents were approaching, and the Mayor sent a request to the barracks for military assistance. There was only one company of soldiers (of Her Majesty’s 45th Regiment of foot) stationed at Newport at the time. Of these thirty men, under command of Lieut. Basil Gray, were sent to the assistance of the Mayor. They arrived at the Westgate Hotel about 8 a.m. The soldiers were placed in a room on the ground floor of the hotel with three windows (a bow window with three divisions) coming down within a few inches of the ground, and it should be observed that they did not load their muskets until, after being fired upon, they were ordered to do so. Shortly after the rioters were seen advancing, the numbers being technically stated in the indictment for High Treason as “a great multitude ... to the number of two thousand and more,” probably more accurately computed at 5,000, armed with guns, pistols, pikes, swords, daggers, clubs, bludgeons, and other weapons. Amongst the miscellaneous “weapons of offence” were scythes fixed on poles, and an instrument (of which a specimen was produced in court) called a “mandrel,” used for working out coal in the mines, and somewhat resembling a pick-axe in shape. A portion of the rioters formed in front of the hotel, and at once began the attack by firing a volley of small arms at the windows of the room where the soldiers were placed, of which the lower shutters were closed. They gained entrance to a passage, or corridor, communicating with it by a door. The word was immediately given to load with ball cartridge, but whilst the lower window shutters remained closed, the men could not reply. Therefore, with the certainty that they would be fired on, the Mayor and Lieutenant Gray threw back the shutters, and stood unmasked facing the insurgents, who immediately discharged a volley of small arms, whereby the Mayor was wounded in the groin, and seriously in one arm near the shoulder, and Sergeant Daily was badly hit in the head. The order to fire was at once given, and several of the insurgents were wounded, and fell. For the short time that the conflict lasted the rioters in the house continued to try to force the position by rushing up to the doorway; but when they encountered their own dead and received the return fire of the soldiers they faltered, and in less than ten minutes the affray was over. The passage was cleared of all excepting the dead and wounded, and the vast mob of rioters was dispersing with all speed. In the words of one witness, they “ran to all quarters.” Another deposed that he met numbers of them near Newport “running back in all directions,” and though here and there some men remained, they were without arms, and from the quantity of weapons of offence collected afterwards, it was demonstrable that in many cases the men must have flung them away as they fled. But though short, the affair had been bloody. The rioters lost seven men killed besides a number of wounded, and the casualties to their opponents were in some cases serious, although not fatal. Hundreds hurried from the scene of their repulse with such speed that by ten o’clock a.m. they were passing the Lodge Gate of Tredegar Park, about two miles from Newport. Amongst this crowd was John Frost, ex-draper of Newport and would-be conductor of the outbreak, a man who had proved himself as deficient in courage as he had been inefficient in leadership. He was endeavouring to conceal his identity by holding a handkerchief to his face as if he were crying. But on being spoken to and recognised, he left the road and going through an archway leading to a coppice wood, was lost sight of. A warrant was granted in the afternoon of the same day, and in the evening, on the door being forced open of the house of a man named Partridge (about a quarter of a mile from the Westgate Hotel in Newport), Frost was found and was immediately taken into custody. On being searched, three pistols all loaded, a powder flask, and some balls were found in his pocket.

PLATE XVI.
Chepstow Castle, Monmouthshire.
(p. [16].)

CHAPTER VIII
BEGINNING THE STUDY OF ENTOMOLOGY, COLLECTIONS OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGICAL SPECIMENS, AND FAMILY DISPERSAL.

So far as a date can be given to what has been the absorbing interest of the work of my life, the 12th of March, 1852, would be about the beginning of my real study of Entomology. I fancy I attended to it more than I knew myself, for little things come back to memory connected with specimens being brought to me to name or look at, one in particular regarding a rare locust. The date was some time before coaches were discontinued, and the usual gathering of people in those days had collected at the door of the George Hotel in Chepstow to see the coach change horses, when, to the astonishment of all, a fine rose-underwinged locust appeared amongst them. Chepstow is on a steep hill, and the “George” about half a mile from the bridge (plate [XVII].). Down the hill set off the locust, pursued by a party from the George, until it was captured at the bridge, and our family doctor conveyed it alive and uninjured to me. On my father sending it up to Oxford to Professor Daubeney as a probable curiosity, he identified it as being the first of the kind which had been taken so far west. If he gave us the name, I have forgotten it. In March I began my studies by buying my first entomological book, and I chose beetles for the subject, and Stephens’s “Manual of British Beetles”[^[25]] for my teacher. Those who know the book will understand my difficulties. It has no illustrations, glossary, nor convenient abstracts to help beginners, and, if such things existed in those days, they were not accessible to me. But I made up my mind that I was going to learn, and as palpi, maxillæ, and names of all the smaller parts of the insects were wholly unknown to me, I struck out a plan of my own. From time to time I got one of the very largest beetles that I could find, something that I was quite sure of, and turned it into my teacher. I carefully dissected it and matched the parts to the details of the description given by Stephens. The process was very tedious and required great care, but I got a sound foundation, and by making a kind of synopsis of the chief points of classification I got a start. To this day (1891) I have my old Stephens’s Manual with my own pencil markings, that started me on my unaided course. Identification was very difficult for a long time, but I “looked out” my beetles laboriously till I thought I was sure of the name, and then, to make quite certain, I took the subject the other way forward—worked back systematically from the species till I found that there was no other kind that it could be. Killing my specimens was another difficulty. I had been told that if beetles were dropped into hot water death was instantaneous. I was not aware that it should be boiling. So into the kitchen I went with a water beetle, which in after years I found must have been Dytiscus marginalis—a large water beetle which has great powers of rapid swimming—got a tumbler of hot water, and dropped my specimen in. But to my perfect horror, instead of being killed instantaneously, it skimmed round and round on the water for perhaps a minute as if in the greatest agony. This was my second lesson; thenceforward I supplied myself with chloroform.

My first experience in the use of the microscope was gained by helping my brother William to prepare botanical specimens for examination under his microscope. I thus had useful practice early in life, 1849 (?), in the management of a good instrument. I bought my own about 1864, after my brother John’s death—one of Pillischer’s—a good working instrument with excellent 1-inch and ¼-inch lenses on a nose-piece. I first studied with it the hairs of different animals. I also worked preparations of teeth, showing the fluid contents when in a fresh state.

PLATE XVII.
Chepstow with the Road Bridge over the Wye (opened in 1816), Chepstow Castle on the River-bank, and rising ground behind.
Frith photo.

In the number of the “Gardeners’ Chronicle and Agricultural Gazette” for August 1, 1868, the announcement was made that “Throughout the month of August there will be open in the Palace of Industry, in the Champs Élysées, Paris, an Exhibition which we conceive cannot fail to be of great service in extending a knowledge of the destructive or beneficial habits of various species of insects.... The Exhibition is organised by the ‘Société d’Insectologie Agricole’ under the Presidency of Dr. Boisduval, one of the Vice-Presidents of the Horticultural Society of Paris, and under the auspices of the Minister of Agriculture, Commerce, and Public Works. The object of this Society (and consequently of the Exhibition itself) is twofold: firstly, to investigate the economy and to extend the benefits resulting from insects serviceable to mankind; and secondly, to study the habits of those species which affect our gardens, orchards, farms or forests, in order to arrest their ravages or destroy them individually.”

Details were given at some length of the classes of subjects to be represented, in the hope that it might attract the attention of the Council of our own Horticultural Society to the desirability of arranging some similar exhibition, and, on the 22nd of August following, the public were informed (again in the “Gardeners’ Chronicle,” p. 893) that “the desideratum lately pointed out as falling within the province of the Royal Horticultural Society to supply, viz., a Collection of Insects (and their products), is now in a fair way to be made good.” A short sketch was given of the plan on which it was proposed to deal with the subject, in which the “insect friends” of the horticulturist were the division to be placed first. Following these were to be “gardeners’ enemies,” and the plants on which they feed; next to these again, “insects beneficial or injurious to man.” Negotiations on the part of the Council of the Royal Horticultural Society with the Science and Art Department resulted in the agreement that, if the Society would form the Collection, the Department would house, care for, and display it. The eminently qualified Fellows of the Society, Mr. Wilson Saunders, Mr. Andrew Murray (pp. [75] and [87]), and Mr. M. J. Berkeley, agreed to lend their best assistance in the matter, and Mr. Murray, at the request of the Council, undertook the most laborious part of the task—that of receiving, arranging, and putting in order the various specimens that might be sent from time to time. All collectors and observers who might be willing to help were requested to communicate with Mr. Murray, and without delay I availed myself of the opportunity, in pleasant anticipation of the entomological co-operation giving a use to what had been previously somewhat desultory observation.

I was singularly well situated for the collection of ordinary kinds of injurious insects, and for the observation of their workings, as I then resided on my father’s Gloucestershire property. The extent was not very great, only about 800 acres, but the nature of both the land and the cultivation afforded wonderful variety of material for commencing a collection. The wood- and park-land included old timber trees in some instances dating back to the time of the Edwards, and also plenty of ordinary deciduous woodland and coppice. The fir plantations supplied conifer-loving forest pests; the ordinary insects of crop and garden were of course plentiful; the woodland and field pools added their quota; and the diversity in exposure from the salt pasturage by the Severn to the various growths up the face of the cliffs to about 140 feet probably had something to do also with the great variety of insect life. I had willing helpers in the agricultural labourers—when they had made up their minds whether they would assist or not. They had always helped, for we were on very friendly terms, and some of them or their children, like myself, had been born on the estate. But, though I did not know it at the time, I heard afterwards that when I asked for such special help they held a sort of informal meeting to consult whether it should be granted. Happily they settled that I was to be helped because the rural counsel stated I made use of what I got. The verdict was satisfactory in practical results, but I had my own private opinion that what were sometimes called “Miss Eleanor’s shillings” helped the cause of collection. From the commencement of work until my father’s death, when I ceased to have command of the large area of ground, I collected and sent the results to the charge of Mr. Murray. Communication was entirely carried on by letter.

[N.B.—Miss Ormerod’s work was gracefully acknowledged by the Royal Horticultural Society awarding her the Floral Medal (plate [XXII].).]

Family Dispersal.

My father’s last days were happy and painless, and were passed in comfort under the attendance of my sisters and myself, whom, in the failing condition of his powers of exertion he preferred to all other society. We deeply felt the happiness of ministering to his welfare, for he would not hear of our leaving him for even twenty-four hours, and he objected to visits from my brothers excepting occasionally for a short time. They, not being used to the gentle ways necessary for an aged invalid, worried him. His last illness, however, was short. On the Monday preceding his decease he was able to come downstairs to his nine o’clock breakfast as usual, and the Thursday following—the 9th of October, 1873—he passed gently away, at the mature age of eighty-seven years.

He was succeeded in the property by his eldest son, the Venerable Thos. Johnson Ormerod, Archdeacon of Suffolk, and Rector of Redenhall-cum-Harleston, Norfolk, who had held the post of Examining Chaplain to two bishops of Norwich, Dr. Stanley and Dr. Hinds, and had been requested to hold it once again by their successor, Dr. Pelham. This however, he declined, not feeling disposed in his own advancing age to continue in the laborious though honourable office. On my father’s death, my brother resigned his living,[^[26]] and moved with his two unmarried daughters to Sedbury. From his standing as a clergyman of high position, who had long mixed in literary society, and also as a country gentleman, it had been hoped that he would make Sedbury a literary and county centre, as it had been in my father’s time. But his life was unexpectedly closed at the age of sixty-five by a sudden illness. He died on 2nd December, 1874, and the property passed to his eldest son, the Rev. G. T. B. Ormerod, then, or shortly before, curate of Stroud.

[A short account of Miss Ormerod’s brothers other than the eldest above referred to—all men of ability and diligent workers—will complete this chapter of family history.

“Two entered the Church; the third brother, John, was the holder of the Port Fellowship of Brasenose and bursar of that college; and the youngest, Arthur, spent his life in parish work as Vicar of Halvergate, in Norfolk.

“The fifth brother, William, and the sixth, Edward, became students at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital, to which institution their uncle, Dr. Peter Mere Latham and his father, Dr. John Latham, had been physicians. William’s health failing, he left London, and after a few years’ practice at Oxford, where he was surgeon to the Radcliffe Infirmary, he retired to Canterbury, and there died at a comparatively early age. Edward distinguished himself as a physician and as a naturalist. He too was debarred by bad health from practising in London, but in Brighton he became physician to the Sussex County Hospital, and was for many years the leading consultant of the town. He wrote several excellent papers on medical subjects, and his monograph on “British Social Wasps” brought him the fellowship of the Royal Society.

“The second brother, Wareing, and the fourth, Henry, started as solicitors in Manchester. Wareing left Manchester for Devonshire, living first at Chagford, on the borders of Dartmoor, and afterwards at Teignmouth. Geology was his favourite study. He compiled the Index for the publications of the Geological Society, of which he was a fellow, and he made many contributions to its journal.

“Henry Mere Ormerod continued to practise as a solicitor in Manchester till his death in 1898. He also managed his father’s Lancashire estates, and to him the other members of his family turned for legal and for practical advice. He was a churchwarden of the Collegiate Church, now the Cathedral, trustee of various important charities, active in all good movements, proud to be of Lancashire origin and a Manchester man. He possessed extensive knowledge and most varied interests. His collections of books, china, and prints were remarkable; and in such subjects as archæology, genealogy, architecture, geology, and certain branches of natural history he was an expert. It was he who presented to the Bodleian Library, Oxford, in accordance with the wishes of his father, the author’s copy of the ‘History of Cheshire.’”]

Extract from Ormerod’s “History of Cheshire,” vol. iii. page 450 (1st edition), relative to the Original of Pl. [xviii].

“P. 238, Nantwich Hospital. The author has in his possession a singularly curious oak chest which he purchased at Erdswick Hall. It had been bought by the tenant at a sale at Hulgreve Hall (an estate of the Astons, who participated in the division of the religious spoil at the Reformation), and it was traditionally said to have come from this hospital. It appears to have been one of the chests used to keep vestments and chalices, &c., in, and is about two feet broad, by five in length, and two feet nine inches in height; at each end are two compartments, and in front five, all of which except the central one are sumptuously carved in imitation of rich Gothic windows with canopies, crockets, finials, buttresses, and shrine work. The centre represents the coronation of Henry VI., and the single rose occurs over the fleur-de-lis in the ornaments. The chest is figured in Plate 44 of ‘Specimens of Gothic Architecture in England,’ by Augustus Pugin, 1822; and a description is given at page 27.

“A chest, of a description precisely corresponding with it, was recently offered for sale at Liverpool, with the Brereton painted glass, and described as having been formerly the church chest at Ashton-under-Lyne.”

PLATE XVIII.
Antique Carved Chest, an Heirloom of the Ormerod Family.

CHAPTER IX
COMMENCEMENT AND PROGRESS OF ANNUAL REPORTS OF OBSERVATIONS OF INJURIOUS INSECTS

In the spring of 1877 I issued a short pamphlet of seven pages, entitled “Notes for Observations of Injurious Insects,”[^[27]] in which I suggested how much a series of observations in relation to insect ravages on food crops was to be desired; this not merely for scientific purposes, but with a view to finding means of lessening the amount of yearly loss which tells so heavily on individual growers, and also on the country at large. I pointed out shortly that many insect attacks could be remedied, if attention were directed to the subject; and also that many would probably be found, if reliable information could be procured, to be coincident with multiplication or diminution of insect life. On the way in which this increase and decrease were affected by surroundings, such as plants, &c., suitable for food or shelter; by agricultural conditions, such as drainage, nature of the soil and of manures; and also by the state of the weather—I gave some guiding notes, and requested information from agriculturists and entomologists, who were both practically and scientifically qualified to aid in the matter. I also added some short remarks as to the nature of the entomological observations desired; as of date, and amount of appearance of larvæ (grubs); amount of injury caused; and any other points of use and interest that might occur to the observer. And further (as some sort of assistance in the commencement of the plan of campaign) I gave a list of about eighteen of our commonest crop, fruit, and forest insects, with short descriptions in the very plainest words I could use, in most cases accompanied by illustrations.

As my name was then little before the public, although I had worked on entomology for a good many years, I requested permission of two of my scientific friends, the Rev. T. A. Preston, one of the masters of Marlborough College, and much interested in phenology (i.e., observation of natural phenomena); and Mr. E. A. Fitch, Secretary of the Entomological Society, to allow me to add their names as referees. To this they kindly consented, but with the stipulation from Mr. Preston that he did not wish to co-operate further. I believe I may say with regard to Mr. Fitch such a very small amount of communication took place that it would not have been worth while to mention the matter, excepting pro forma, on account of the names being recorded. These were soon removed from succeeding reports as unnecessary. The pamphlet was widely circulated and the request for observations was responded to far more cordially than could have been expected. Notes regarding insect appearances, together with observations of their habits, and of practicable methods of prevention, were forwarded by observers—who were qualified both as technically scientific and practical workers—from localities scattered over the country as far north as Aberdeenshire in Scotland and south to Hants and Devonshire in England. In fact the communications were quite sufficient to show that the plan was approved of from an agricultural point of view, and might be continued hopefully. In after years I was told that it was very well received by the press. I have been greatly indebted since both to the agricultural and general press, but at the time it did not seem to me to be peculiarly warmly welcomed, nor I think was it likely to be, until it had more to say for itself. The pamphlet was not of many pages; the knowledge of the great mischief caused by insect pests, and the need of prevention of their ravages, was not spread abroad as at the present day, and I was not able at first to utilise to the best advantage the information sent as I had no working reports of my own to help me as to examples of the best methods of arrangement.[^[28]]

From the first I had excellent contributions. Various members of our Entomological Societies were good enough to send me notes on insects to which they devoted special study, and so also were members of the Meteorological Society, regarding points of natural history, bird life, weather, &c., connected with entomological considerations, and regarding which they were special observers. Agriculturally I had good help also from other quarters, and amongst many who assisted me, I will take leave to especially give the name of the late Mr. Malcolm Dunn, the Duke of Buccleuch’s superintendent at the Palace Gardens, Dalkeith, N.B. We never met, but whenever I applied to him he was unfailing in prompt and serviceable reply. As a commencement, the introductions with which he favoured me to the leading foresters and horticulturists of North Britain, were of such invaluable aid that I should be ungrateful not to mention his name as of one to whom I owe a deep debt of gratitude.

In the report for the year 1881 I altered the plan of arrangement to one which so far as I can judge met all that was needed for practical as well as scientific service so conveniently that I have since adhered to it. The information was classed under headings of (a) farm crops, (b) orchard and bush fruits, and (c) forest trees, regarding which observations of insect attack were forwarded. These headings were arranged alphabetically, for instance: Apple, Bean, Corn and Grass, Hop, Oak, Peas, Pine, Turnip, &c., &c. Any information as to live stock or animal insect pests was similarly placed (that is, alphabetically) amongst the other attacks, under the headings of Deer, Grouse, Horses, &c., &c., as the case might be; but beyond what was absolutely necessary, as in the case of Ox warble, I endeavoured to avoid entering on stock infestations as leading to investigations very unpleasant to myself either to make or to discuss, and very much better left in the hands of veterinary surgeons. Following each heading, the observations were placed which had been contributed during the season, and which appeared to be of sufficient interest to be recorded, regarding the special crop, or fruit, &c., referred to, these being given with locality and date, as far as possible in the contributor’s words, and over his own name, unless by request, or for some special reason. This plan of giving the very fullest recognition possible of the source of the information, I, for three very special reasons, most strongly recommend to the consideration of all my readers not fully accustomed to practical reporting:

1. That thus the information may very often carry conviction with it by the name of some well-known agriculturist or cattle-breeder being appended.

2. That to do otherwise is a robbery of the credit of the contributor, and a false appropriation of it by the reporter, wholly unbecoming an honest worker.

3. That the full recognition is a great protection to the reporter or compiler of the reports from plagiarism of his own work. There are people who think nothing of appropriating the credit of true workers, and who absorb also rewards in the shape of salaries and official position based on their own questionable conduct.

In the year 1881 it seemed desirable to change the running heading at the top of the pages. The name of the crop, fruit, or other subject to which the paper referred was henceforward placed at the top of the left-hand page, and the name of each successive attack to it at the top of the right-hand page; as, for instance, Cabbage at the left side, and the different kinds of infestations recorded during the year which might occur to Cabbage, as Cabbage butterfly (large white), Cabbage-root fly, Cabbage moth, on the right-hand heading. At the beginning of each paper, the name of the crop, or fruit, was given in large capitals, and beneath and at the heading of each successive paper, the name of the injurious insect to be referred to, also in English, with the scientific name, and authority for the same following. The observations of contributors were inserted unbroken, so that the methods of prevention and remedy noted as successful by each observer were thus recorded in connection with the accompanying peculiarities of cultivation, soil, manure, weather, &c. The whole life history of the insect, so far as known or accessible, was given, and sometimes, as in great attacks or in special circumstances, a “summary” of the preceding recorded information; this being, wherever possible, followed by some paragraphs or pages of “Methods of Prevention and Remedy.”

In matters of phraseology, selection of the very plainest and shortest words that I could choose was part of my plan, and after the first few years I exchanged the short table of contents for a plain working index.

Illustration always appeared to me a very important part of the work, so that readers might start with the knowledge of the appearance of the insects under consideration, gained by a glance at the accompanying figure, without having the trouble of trying to form a kind of “mind picture” from the descriptions given, often very unlike the true object.[^[29]] At first—in the small beginning—the numbers needed were also small, and I think the little stock of figure blocks with which I started, and for which I was indebted to the kind courtesy of a friend, amounted to one dozen! This matter, however, I set right as soon as possible by the purchase from Messrs. Blackie & Sons, of Glasgow, of electros of most of the beautiful wood engravings given in Curtis’s “Farm Insects,” under an agreement that the accommodation was granted on condition of my using the figures only in my own publications. Some of the illustrations I drew myself on the blocks, and as time went on, and infestations, little or not at all entered on before, required illustration, I engaged the valuable assistance of two brothers,[^[30]] which was continued thenceforward throughout the work. It appears to me that it is hardly possible to exceed the beauty of their work, whether in characteristic representation or in precise and accurate details. I have had great pleasure in the entomological approval which has been bestowed upon it. Illustrations from other sources have of course been used, always, so far as I am aware, most carefully acknowledged; and so far as has been in my power, I have endeavoured that the illustration of each infestation should show the insect (where it was possible to do so) in each of its successive stages of life, as of the caterpillar or maggot (scientifically the larva); the chrysalis (pupa); and the perfect insect, butterfly, beetle, sawfly, &c., as the case might be. This matter is of great importance agriculturally, for how else (it may be asked) in common circumstances, excepting by a good, plain illustration, is a farmer or fruit-grower to know what the connection is between the grubs and maggots which he finds underground or on his trees and the moths or beetles which he may notice in his fields or orchards. To give a single instance, how seldom the grey, cylindrical, legless grubs of the Daddy Longlegs are known to have anything to do with the large, gnat-like, two-winged flies which are to be seen floating over our grass-fields in legions where the larvæ have been destroying underground. And so the work went on, and I believe that I may say that—from the great amount of useful information contributed, together with my own co-operation in entomological verification, adding requisite details, publishing the year’s communications, and distributing them to my contributors—it answered fairly the purpose for which it was set on foot. And year by year we gained knowledge till we possessed serviceable information on the main points, both of habits and means of prevention of the greater number of our really seriously injurious farm, orchard, and forest pests of Britain.

Those who wish to investigate in detail the various kinds of infestation noticed during the first twenty-two years of my observations will find them in “The General Index to my Annual Reports on Injurious Insects, 1877-1898,” compiled at my request by Mr. Robert Newstead.[^[31]] In this index the insects are arranged alphabetically under their popular and also under their scientific names, with references to the various Annual Reports in which notices of their observation are recorded, or papers given on them, and also of the pages in each paper containing information on their habits and history and means of prevention. Lists are also given of crops and plants, stock, &c., affected. The index thus affords a fair summary of the advance of our knowledge of crop infestation during the years referred to.[^[32]]

In the year 1881 I published a digest of the information sent in up to date in an octavo volume of 323 pages, very fully illustrated, entitled “Manual of Injurious Insects, with Methods of Prevention and Remedy”; and in 1890 I followed this by a much enlarged demy-octavo second edition of 450 pages, bearing the same title. In 1898, under the title of “Handbook of Insects Injurious to Orchard and Bush Fruits, with Means of Prevention and Remedy,” pp. 280, I included the special observations on fruit infestations which had been sent me. In 1900 I published a pamphlet (also illustrated) entitled “Flies Injurious to Stock” (pp. 80), [p. [304]] giving reports of observations of life history and habits, and also of means of prevention of a few kinds of infestation. These were given as shortly as they could serviceably be dealt with, excepting in the case of the Warble fly, Hypoderma bovis. Into this it appeared desirable to enter more fully, it having been under my observation since the year 1884, and having been carefully written on in every detail of habits and means of prevention, as observed by my contributors and myself in this country.

Besides the above publications, I arranged, for gratuitous circulation, various four-page leaflets on our commonest farm pests. Each contained an illustration and as much information as I could manage to condense into the limited space. Among the subjects discussed were the widely destructive Wireworm and equally destructive grubs of the Daddy Longlegs or Cranefly, the Mangold-leaf maggot, the Mustard beetle, the minute Stem eel-worm (which causes the malformed growth of cereal plants known as “tulip root” and does much harm in clover shoots), the Warble fly and the troublesome Forest fly. Our recent investigations have proved this last to be present in two other districts at least, besides the New Forest and its vicinity in Hampshire, to which previously it had been supposed to be almost limited (p. [138]). For the leaflet on the Warble fly, its history, and easily practicable methods of prevention and remedy, there has been such a large demand that various issues have been successively printed amounting to 170,000 copies, including 15,000 copies which the Messrs. Murray, of Aberdeen, requested permission to print at their own cost.

The original plan (or rather that which gradually formed in the first few years) of arrangement of the Annual Reports appeared to meet all requirements, so long as the requirements of the case remain unaltered. Year after year such information as had been asked for was sent, gradually completing most of the histories of our seriously injurious crop and orchard insects, but in the report for 1899 it was requisite to make some arrangement for insertion of disconnected additional observations of appearance, habits, &c., of insects, previously referred to. These I gave accordingly in an appendix under the heading of “Short Notices,” not to encumber the report with repetitions that could be avoided.

In 1901, when about to publish my report of observations of the preceding year, it appeared to me that a large proportion of the new information contributed bore on points of scientific entomological interest, or of occasional appearance of little observed attacks of very little interest or use to the majority of our agriculturists and orchard growers, and quite foreign to the broad scale consideration of pests, which was the object of these reports. It seemed something more than unnecessary to continue this work, and I, therefore, inserted the following notice in the preface of my Annual Report for 1900, thus closing the series with the closing century:—

“But now, although with much regret, I am obliged to say that I feel the time has come for discontinuing this series of Annual Reports. When I commenced the work in 1877, comparatively little was known of the habits and means of prevention of insects seriously injurious to our crops, and of this little a very small amount was accessible for public service, and I undertook the series of reports in the hope (so far as in my power lay) of doing something to meet both these difficulties. Firstly, by endeavouring to gain reliable information of the kind needed; and secondly, by publishing this, with all requisite additions, and especially with illustrations, at a price far below the publication expenses, so that it might be accessible to all who wished to purchase, but especially by sending a copy of each Annual Report to each contributor who had favoured me with useful information. It seemed to be but right and fair that those who kindly helped in the work should have their courtesy acknowledged to the best of my power, and I have continued the reciprocation throughout. But the work was hard; for many years for about five or six months all the time I could give to the subject was devoted to arranging the contributions of the season for the Annual Report of the year, with the addition of the best information I could procure from other sources (in every case, whether of contributors or otherwise, fully acknowledged). As the consultation enquiries were kept up during winter as well as summer, I found the work, carried on single-handed, at times very fatiguing. But so long as there appeared to be a call for it, I have tried to do what I could. Now, however, the necessities of the case have (as a matter of course) been gradually changing. Year after year information has been sent, gradually completing the histories of most of our worst insect pests, and now additional information is rare (as is to be expected after twenty-four years’ observations) on points of great agricultural importance.

“I claim no credit to myself in the work; but those who will look over the names of the contributors, given with their information, will see how deeply indebted I am to them, and to other good friends, who have placed their experience and great knowledge at the public service. To them, and to all who have assisted me, and to some who have allowed what began as agricultural communications to ripen into valuable friendship, I offer my grateful thanks and my deep appreciation of their goodness, and I trust they will believe that if, as I well know, much of my work has not been so well done as it would have been in better qualified hands, at least I have earnestly tried to do my very best.”[^[33]]

On the publication of the above-mentioned report, I received many kind letters from friends, and I was much gratified by the press allusions on the matter. These, obviously, it would not be desirable for me to do more here than just allude to generally, with my thanks.[^[34]]

CHAPTER X
SAMPLES OF LEGAL EXPERIENCES

It was a good many years after my name had been before the public as an official Consulting Entomologist that I began occasionally to receive applications to furnish what is called “expert” evidence regarding insect infestation of live crops, or of cargoes of flour. To work this properly, and without risk of being confused under examination by the host of questions, relevant or irrelevant, and, of course, made purposely perplexing by the legal representatives of the opposing side of the case, involved a most inconvenient amount of research and also of mental strain. It was necessary to keep all points in any way likely to be referred to, classed in order in the mind, and available instantaneously without hurry or confusion; and sometimes also necessary in helping non-entomological cross-examiners so to formulate their questions as to admit of any answer being given.

My first experience of anything of this kind was in July, 1889, when I received a copy of a letter written by myself on September 20th of the previous year relative to a certain insect attack, of which specimens, together with samples of the infested plants, had then been sent me. This letter was accompanied by an enquiry whether I could swear to the accuracy of my statements. This, of course, I had no doubts about. It was a perfectly simple case, and I replied accordingly. The result was that one morning before luncheon my sister came into my room in perplexity, and announced that there was a “young man” in my study who wanted to speak to me, but who he was, or where he came from, or anything except that it was just for a minute that he wished to see me, nobody had been able to make out. I believe I guessed pretty well the nature of the mysterious business; but, as for explanation, the young man was perfectly impenetrable, excepting on two points. One that he was to give me a paper which I accepted, and next that he was to give me some small amount of money, which I also accepted, not knowing whether any other course was open to me. As this was the first (and also last) case of a subpœna being served on me, I do not know whether the immense reticence is part of the business, or whether the server is possibly in danger of bad language or unpleasant treatment, but certainly the visitor appeared very uneasy, and took himself off as soon as possible. On examining the paper I found it called me to give evidence on the side of the defendants, which was a little awkward, as after due investigation of details I found that the entomological circumstances would give the case for the plaintiffs. It ran as follows:—

“In the High Court of Justice between Thomas Wilkinson, Plaintiff, and The Houghton Main Colliery Company, Limited, Defendants. Victoria, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Queen, Defender of the Faith, to Miss Eleanor A. Ormerod, of Torrington House, St. Albans, in the County of Herts. Greeting.—We command you to attend before our Justices assigned to take the assizes in and for the West Riding Division of the County of York to be holden at Leeds on Wednesday the 24th day of July, 1889, at the hour of ten in the forenoon and so from day to day during the said assizes until the above cause is tried to give evidence on behalf of the Defenders, &c.”

On the back of the document was inscribed (name and address given) that the writ was issued by the London Agents of J. Parker Rhodes, of Rotherham, Yorkshire, defendants’ solicitor. I felt myself very unpleasantly situated, more particularly as one of my legal brothers assured me that I should make myself (or be made) quite ridiculous in Court, but I did not see the matter quite in this light, for I was sure of my facts. I explained to the solicitor for the defendants that if put in the witness box I must support the cause of the plaintiff. The case was then withdrawn and costs allowed to the plaintiff.

Ten years afterwards I was employed by Messrs. Ross T. Smyth and Co., 33, Mark Lane, London, E.C. The case was entered on March 9, 1899, and the matter in question was alleged infestation of a cargo of flour, transmitted from New York, U.S.A., to Durban, S. Africa. I gave evidence on oath here, Torrington House, St. Albans, on October 20, 1899, before Mr. E. K. Blyth (of Messrs. Blyth, Dutton, Hartley and Blyth), appointed a Commissioner of the High Court of Natal, to take my evidence in the cause of Smyth v. Findlay. On Tuesday the 24th following, Mr. E. K. Blyth attended with depositions which I read and signed in his presence. Subjoined is a copy of my “Report on Insect Presence,” and also an extract from a confirmatory report made by Mr. Oliver Janson doubly confirmed by the report of a representative of the Department of Agriculture, Division of Entomology, Washington:—

“I have examined the contents of the box and bottle this day submitted to me from yourselves, the bottle being under seal of Messrs. Randle Brothers and Hudson, Durban, Natal, &c., &c. I made my examination both with hand magnifiers and microscope and found that in the very small amount of insect presence in the wheat flour and in the spirit or preservative fluid, there were two kinds of beetles represented. One of these was the Tribolium ferrugineum, popularly known as the Rusty-red flour beetle (fig. [70]). This is a small red-brown, or yellowish-red-brown, beetle, about a sixth of an inch long, somewhat parallel-sided and narrow in proportion to its length; the wing-cases striated longitudinally, and the antennæ (or horns) with a three-jointed club at the extremity. I found this beetle present in all its stages of development; that is, as a comparatively long and narrow larva (grub or maggot); in the chrysalis (pupa) state, in which it resembles the beetle with its limbs folded beneath it until development is complete; and the perfect beetles.

“I also found one specimen of what is called the Cadelle in larval (grub or maggot) state. This is a pitchy-coloured beetle, Trogosita mauritanica or Tenebrioides mauritanicus, rather larger than the kind above named, being about four times longer. I examined the whole amount of insect infestation sifted in my presence from the wheat flour under consideration or taken out of the bottle of preservative fluid, and in the very small amount of insect presence observable, I found nothing else to which the slightest degree of importance could be attached. In reply to the inquiry submitted to me, as to the possibility of the bags of wheat flour under consideration having been infested when they were shipped from New York, on or about July the 5th, 1898; I can state that I fully believe the flour could not then have been infested, as in such case—consequent on the well-known exceedingly favourable conditions for multiplication of insect presence, through which the bags of flour would pass during the voyage—there would certainly by the date of arrival at Durban, on or about September 14th, have been so great an amount of infestation in all stages, that it could not have been overlooked. And by the further dates named, in the following October and November, it would have been overwhelming. The exceedingly high temperatures through which the shipment would pass are known to be very favourable to rapid propagation of successive generations of Tribolium. It is to be borne in mind that the infestation does not lie in a torpid state, but after hatching from the egg (sometimes inaccurately called the “germ”), which soon occurs in high temperatures, it passes through the changes from larva (or grub) to chrysalis, and beetle condition more or less quickly according to warmth of locality; and then the male and female beetles pair, and in the ordinary course die, in the case of the female after egg-laying. Examination of the condition of the flour, had infestation been present, would have shown not only the living infestation, but also the dead bodies of the previous generations of beetles, which being of a hard and horny nature externally, would not have decayed in the flour.

“Further, not only is great warmth favourable to increase of Tribolium, but also the conditions, when flour is placed in bags and left unopened for any length of time, are especially suited to their propagation. I can also state that the effect of Tribolium infestation on flour is such that its presence even to a small amount could not be unobserved, and these characteristics were wholly absent in the flour submitted to me. To the best of my knowledge and belief I consider it to be absolutely and demonstrably impossible that the infestation regarding which the inquiry is now before me could have been shipped from New York, and after the most careful examination and investigation which I am able to make, I consider that the infestation took place after the arrival of the flour at Durban.

“May I, in addition to the above opinion, be permitted to suggest to you that as this investigation is one of great importance, it might be satisfactory to yourselves if you were also to submit the samples, which I have re-secured under my own seal, to Mr. Oliver E. Janson, F.E.S., as being a skilled entomologist, and so well qualified by personal observation and scientific knowledge of the Coleoptera (beetles), to give ma correct opinion in the present matter, that I should consider him to be the most thoroughly trustworthy English referee.”

Mr. Janson’s report was as follows:—

“Having carefully examined the specimens of insects submitted to me under seal of Miss E. A. Ormerod, and stated to have been found in the accompanying sample of flour, named ‘Radiant,’ ‘Strathness,’ also the specimens of insects, &c. &c., I identify them as the coleopterous insect, known scientifically as Tribolium ferrugineum, in its various stages of larva (grub), pupa (chrysalis), and imago (beetle). I also find a single specimen of Trogosita mauritanica.... In considering the important question as to origin of the infestation, I am of opinion that the evidence afforded clearly indicates the origin of the infestation to have been subsequent to the arrival of the flour at Durban.”

[The case never came to trial, but the unanimity of the expert opinion enabled Messrs. Ross T. Smith & Co. to effect a compromise on terms they were willing to accept.]

The following letter addressed to us by Mr. Wm. Simpson of Messrs. R. & H. Hall, Limited, of Cork, Dublin, Belfast and Waterford, shows a similar satisfactory termination to a case in which granary weevils had done serious damage to a cargo of flour from San Francisco.

“Westport, Feb. 6, 1900. Dear Madam,—Perhaps you have not quite forgotten my visit to you in early summer of last year when I submitted for your inspection a sample of flour with weevil infestation from a cargo landed here. It will I am sure interest you to know that we have just settled the case out of Court by the owners of the vessel paying us £900 and our costs. We are pleased that the matter is thus ended, but I cannot forbear from again thanking you for all the attention and help you gave us in the case and which was to us of the greatest value. Yours very truly, (Sgd) Wm. Simpson.”

CHAPTER XI
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH BY THE EDITOR

The removal of Miss Ormerod and her sister, Georgiana, from Torquay to Spring Grove, Isleworth, was primarily because Torquay did not suit their health and secondarily because at Isleworth they were near Kew Gardens, where they were on intimate terms with Sir Joseph and Lady Hooker. They left again for Torrington House, St. Albans, in September, 1887, partly because Sir Joseph resigned the Directorship of Kew Gardens in 1885 and partly because of the increase of population, and the defective and unwholesome drainage of the house. In a letter (p. [74]) to Dr. Bethune, one of her esteemed Canadian correspondents, she refers to her impending change of residence.

Dunster Lodge, Spring Grove, Isleworth.

August 7, 1887.

“My dear Mr. Bethune,—I have very often lately been hoping to hear of your safe arrival, and I am very glad to hear of it; but I am so sorry that I cannot have the great pleasure of seeing you to-morrow, for I have to be at St. Albans to meet a number of people on business from noon till 4 p.m. This is a great disappointment to me, for I (we) had much looked forward to a chat with you. I am longing to hear of my kind friends in Canada and especially of Mr. Fletcher and Professor Saunders, and I want much to ask you how to transmit so much of a set of my entomological publications as I can get together for acceptance by the Entomological Society of Ontario.[^[35]] I cannot tell you how much I respect and admire the working of that noble Society, and I feel myself greatly honoured by being elected one of its members. Hessian fly (fig. [15]) is indeed becoming a scourge—and the work is enormous—it is a different story now to when I was so roundly sneered at last year for thinking it had come. If we had our grand Entomological Society of Ontario here things might have been very different. I trust you may be able to spare, if only one hour to give us just time to confer a little on your return. I would put aside any ordinary engagement for the pleasure and also the benefit of an entomological conversation. But now about my sister and myself. This place is fast becoming very unsuitable for us—you will know all that is involved in the rapid increase of the outskirts of London—and we have a notice of most of our garden going to be offered for sale next year for small building plots. Therefore we are making arrangements to move about the end of next month to St. Albans. We have many good friends and fellow-workers there or near, and the place is very healthy, and very accessible both for London and the country, and I can, I trust, do my work much more fully there.”

Of Miss Ormerod Lady Hooker has written: “When she was our neighbour during our residence at Kew, she was a frequent visitor at our house and often came in the morning before public hours to the Gardens, to pursue her researches and look for the insects to be found on the trees, shrubs and plants; on these occasions she generally lunched with us and we delighted in her bright and intellectual conversation. She was extremely fond of animals and birds, and could imitate the calls of the animals and the notes of many birds so perfectly that she could collect the creatures around her; it was curious to see the squirrels peep out from the trees when she called to them and venture to her feet for the nuts she scattered for them. Her observation was always on the alert and she saw many minute things in nature that others would have passed by. She was a fine artist—and so was her sister, Miss G. Ormerod. At one time my husband was needing some drawings made for the Botanical Magazine and she offered her services and drew three or four very beautifully.”

PLATE XIX.
Torrington House, St. Albans, Herts, Miss Ormerod’s last Residence.
(p. [115].)

Lady Hooker made a practice of inviting Miss Ormerod and her sister to come over and help to entertain distinguished visitors at great functions and on the occasion of visits of official scientific parties. On one occasion the whole Chinese Embassy, excepting the Ambassador himself, came in Chinese costume. Miss Ormerod asked permission of Lady Hooker to speak to the Naturalist, who talked English very well. The information elicited however was but trifling, amounting to the fact that in China a yellow powder (probably flowers of sulphur) was used to dress plants to ward off disease. She suggested tea as an escape from a disappointing position and then adjourned to the tea-room followed by the whole Embassy. The Entomologist took tea, but another minor member of the group, being reputed at times to indulge in potations to which the hosts were not accustomed, gave great cause for anxiety by taking possession of a wine bottle. Miss Ormerod was successful in spiriting the bottle away and in substituting a cup of tea, but great was her relief when Sir Joseph and Lady Hooker arrived on the scene.

At Kew she also met Andrew Murray, Secretary of the Royal Horticultural Society, who did excellent work in Economic Entomology for the Bethnal Green and South Kensington Museums. Miss Ormerod described him as a “profoundly scientific and intellectual man.”

An interesting instance of the widespread benefit of Miss Ormerod’s work and the affection with which her name and personality were revered by her distant correspondents was supplied by Dr. Lipscomb, her trusted medical attendant. He says:—

“My sister was talking to a small market gardener in a flower garden she was painting near Penzance, and Miss Ormerod’s name happened to be mentioned. The old gardener was beside himself with delight to meet some one who knew Miss Ormerod. He said she had saved him from utter ruin. His flowers had become infected with some injurious insect which bade fair to devastate the whole garden. In despair, hearing of Miss Ormerod, he wrote to her and not only received a kind letter of advice, but also a copy of her work on ‘Injurious Insects’ with the page turned down and the paragraphs specially applicable to the case marked. No wonder the poor old chap with tears in his eyes said he loved his unknown benefactress.”

Miss Ormerod was appointed Consulting Entomologist to the Royal Agricultural Society of England in 1882, and for ten years retained that honourable position to the advantage of the Members and the British public generally.

The need of a Consulting Entomologist was forcibly brought home to the Society, then under the presidency of Mr. J. Dent-Dent, by the disastrous attack in 1881 of the Turnip fly, or more correctly flea beetle, which resulted in an estimated loss of over half a million sterling to farmers in England and Scotland. Leading agriculturists all over the country, but more from the East than the West, supplied information for a report, and special assistance was given by some members of the Royal Agricultural Society, including Mr. J. H. Arkwright of Hampton Court, Herefordshire. The results were embodied in the Annual Report for 1881, published in 1882.

A short time after this event a request was made to Miss Ormerod to indicate whether she would accept the post of Consulting Entomologist to the Royal Agricultural Society. Urged by Mr. Charles Whitehead, Chairman of the “Seeds and Plant Diseases Committee,” and by her intimate personal friend Professor Herbert Little, another member of the Council, she accepted, but with hesitation and with considerable reluctance, engendered by the opposition of her sister Georgiana, who believed her strength was not equal to the strain of additional work. The meeting with members of the Council at the Society’s offices, 12, Hanover Square, London, at which details were discussed, was unusually trying, in spite of the kindly courtesy of the Secretary (Mr. H. M. Jenkins) for whom Miss Ormerod entertained the deepest regard. She says, writing in 1900, “I was nearly frightened out of my wits in going through the requested ordeal, and the recollections of the experiences remain as uniquely unpleasant. On arriving, I gave my card to the attendant, who led me upstairs, where I expected to meet but two or three people, and I was ushered into a room full of gentlemen standing waiting my arrival, not one of whom except Professor Little was known to me even by sight. I advanced about two feet, my sole thought being of the awkward fix in which I had so suddenly been landed, and how I should get out of it. Scarcely a word was spoken when I was led down again to the Secretary’s room, where a discussion took place with Professor Little, Mr. Whitehead, the Secretary, and the President of the Society,—the others remained absent. In the discussion the President attempted a slight examination of my qualifications, but it amounted to little more than eliciting the length of time during which attention had been devoted to Entomology. My reply was “about thirty years,” to which he had nothing further to say. There was a slight departure from the serious nature of the interview when a parcel of Daddy longlegs grubs which had been placed on the table, gave way, and the creatures crawled all over the place. The final result was, that I agreed to take the post of Consulting Entomologist, but I returned home very uneasy in mind and wrote the same evening that I did not wish to accept office. I was, however, pressed into acceptance at the first business meeting and the first work I undertook was the making of drawings to form originals for six diagrams illustrating some common injurious insects with life histories and methods of prevention.[^[36]] This would be the first Tuesday of June, 1882, and I inaugurated my position on the way home by meeting with a severe accident at Waterloo Station, from the results of which I have never recovered. While doubtless rather preoccupied, crossing the road, a rapid incline from Waterloo Road to the station, I did not notice a carriage coming down the slope till the horses’ heads were over mine. With no time to run or turn, I sprang and landed on the pavement, but a sharp pain set in, in the muscle above one knee. Whether it originated from a strain or a blow I never knew, but a little flask I carried on the injured side was beaten in as if by a horse’s foot or the point of a carriage pole. The injury was not properly attended to and the affected part gradually increasing and spreading gave rise to the lameness accompanied with severe and frequently intermittent pain which necessitated exceeding quiet and bodily inactivity—a state of matters which was in marked contrast to the extremely active life I had led in my early years rambling in the country, and latterly by indulging in the mechanical in addition to the usual æsthetical pleasures of gardening.”

She explains in a letter to Dr. Fletcher, dated August 22, 1892 (p. [212]) that she was driven by failing health to resign her honorary official work and to concentrate her energies upon her private work, which steadily increased in volume, and especially on the work of her Annual Report.

A conception of the interesting methods adopted by Miss Ormerod in carrying out her work may be gleaned from her own words addressed to us in the course of a long and intimate correspondence.

“I will now try and think of something you may care to insert about languages. So far as I can avoid it, I try not to write in any language but my own, but I can read serviceably French, Italian, and Spanish, and also Latin for what I need; likewise, of course, German; Russian I could read once but not so readily now; and with the dictionary I can make something of Dutch and Norwegian.”

“Of my very special colleagues who are now gone from us, were Professor Westwood, Life President of the Entomological Society, and Dr. C. V. Riley, Entomologist of the Board of Agriculture of the U.S.A.; and Professor Huxley, in days when I sat on the Council of Education Committee of Economic Entomology, was a valued friend. It was marvellous to see how Huxley with his towering personality led a committee. On one occasion he asked if any one present would express an opinion on the subject under consideration, and he rather suddenly directed his attention to a certain member of committee, who was so startled he nearly got frightened out of his life.”[^[37]]

“The regular course of my work brings me into such constantly recurring communication with the Entomological Departments of our own Colonies, also of many of the U.S.A. States, and various Continental Societies or specialists, that I may venture to say that as occasion occurs we interchange—I mean the heads of the Departments and myself—friendly observations, very beneficial and pleasant to me. The plan of my work has long been to reply, if I could do so soundly, to every enquiry on the day of receipt. Often investigation is needed for scientific purposes, but a large proportion of the enquiries may be answered at once so far as the practical needs of the enquirers are concerned. For further purposes my custom is to work up anything new or involved that occurs, for use in the following Annual Report. I do not devolve on my specialist referees the researches (so far as I can ascertain the state of the case), but they tell me if my identification is correct, or correct it for me, and I quite invariably, if the matter be for publication, publish also my acknowledgment. The correspondence continues steadily all the year round, more of course in the warm seasons of the year than at other times, but even in winter it never ceases. My plan has generally been to store up all the observations of the growing (and consequently insect-attacking) times of the year till autumn, and then sort them and prepare them for the Annual Report of that year. If some favourite subject be under discussion the letters may be very numerous. I once had a run of 60, 80, to 100 a day for a short time, including on one day a total of 149—but of course on such an occasion I was obliged to get help to keep reply at all in hand. The steady letter work of the year I estimate at about 1,500.”

Referring on December 27, 1889, to a proposal which had been made to procure an assistant to relieve her of the enormous pressure of work, she says:—

“I need not point out that, however agreeable the post might be to my so-called ‘assistant,’ to me the addition would be a trouble—loss of time and other inconveniences beyond telling. It would be more trouble to write to him than to attend myself, and as a referee he would be almost useless. My reference work is to the leading men of the world—those who are known, literally, as the authorities above all others on the special points; thus I am in no way derogating from the respect I bear to Professor Harker’s[^[38]] knowledge, but who that knew anything would have cared for his opinion on Icerya purchasi (scale insect of orange trees)? Dr.Signoret’s opinion carried all before it. Again, no one’s opinion stands like that of Mr. G. B. Buckton on Aphides, and he communicates with me whenever I ask.

“On that most important agricultural matter, Tylenchus devastatrix, there is no one in England fit to form an opinion worth comparison with Drs. de Man and J. Ritzema Bos, by whom I am favoured, through being allowed any amount of communication. These, and men like these, pre-eminent each in his own line, are the referees that I personally am honoured by being allowed to ask aid from; and in my own humble way sometimes I can reciprocate, but ‘an assistant’ would do me no good in any of these matters. And with regard to agricultural and applied bearings I do not want a dictum, but year by year by my own correspondence with agriculturists to work out on the fields the parts of the cases as they occur, and to give the points to the public in my reports. I am responsible for the entomological work of the R.A.S.E., and unless it goes through my hands I do not know what may be going on, and no one would know to whom to write, or, in fact, anything definite about the matter, if there were an assistant. I have my own circle of helpers, my own paid special referee, by whom I reach specialists out of my circle, and my lady amanuensis in the house, besides my good sister’s invaluable aid—always promptly and ably given. So long as I can I hope to keep my work in my own hands, and if it were not for the great masses sometimes sent me, which come because I have been (up to the present time) the only Official Entomologist here, the work would not have been so distressing. Professor Harker is, I believe, excellently qualified to hold a good and high entomological post, but not even Professor Riley or Professor Westwood would work a post without referees. Some day, I hope, he may be high in office; then he will, as I do now, have his organised corresponding staff.”

“As a meteorological observer, while living at Isleworth my work consisted in taking notes on about eighteen different subjects once a day, beginning at 9 a.m., Greenwich time precisely. These included taking the readings of the maximum and minimum temperatures, and also those other thermometrical conditions, as of dry and wet bulb, solar, earth, and ground thermometers, &c.; likewise of rainfall in the past four-and-twenty hours, of the state of weather at the time; the nature of the clouds, with the amount and direction of them, and likewise the direction and estimated speed of wind. The time occupied out of doors in the observations was about twenty minutes, to which had to be added the barometrical reading with that of the attached thermometers, with corrections according to tables furnished for altitude of the barometer, and such minute errors in record of the thermometers as were shown by tables of error furnished by comparison with the instruments at the Royal Observatory, Kew. Altogether the work required some considerable amount of time, and also most scrupulous attention to accuracy, not to say some amount of personal self-denial, as whatever the weather might be at 9 a.m. the work had to be done. Perhaps there would be a thunderstorm, or at other times cold so great that my fingers almost froze to the instruments, as on one occasion, when the thermometer registered nearly down to zero.”

PLATE XX.
Miss Ormerod at her Meteorological Observation Station,
near Isleworth.

Professor Westwood belonged to the good old academic type of scholar who made the responses in church in Latin. He was, till his death, Miss Ormerod’s mentor from her initiation into Entomology, and she regarded him as the greatest living scientific authority in the broad lines of their common subject during the whole period of her advisory work. They “got on famously,” and as she said, he “took the privilege,” which she highly appreciated, “of knocking her work about,” as the subjoined letter, written at an early stage of her career as an authoress, charmingly shows.

University Museum, Oxford,

January 10, 1884.

My Dear Miss Ormerod,—I congratulate you on the publication of your “Guide to Methods of Insect Life”—the nicest little Introduction to Entomology with which I am acquainted. You have been very fortunate in obtaining such a good series of woodcuts, many of which were new to me. Allow me to suggest one or two improvements after a hurried glance over the contents. It would have been well to have indicated more precisely the size of some of the objects figured; for instance, the locust, p. 28, is twice the size of the figure—whilst the earwig, on the same page, is about one-half the length of the figure. In p. 98, the Death’s-head moth, which is twice the size of the Eyed-hawk moth, is represented smaller than it is in next page. In p. 118 the fly is the Sirex juvencus, not the commoner one S. gigas. In p. 125 the Bee parasite has not the front portion of the wings black, but as milky as the other part. In p. 73, line 8, for “glassy” read “glossy.” I know you will thank me for these hurried suggestions, or I would not have troubled you with them.

Thanks for your kind enquiries. I am thankful to say that after two months’ attack of bronchitis I am nearly all right again, but have been much confined to the house, although I have been wanting to go to London. My kind remembrance to your sister. We should be very glad if you could come and give us a visit for a short time.—Yours very truly,

J. O. Westwood.

The high terms of approval and appreciation of her work by Miss Ormerod’s numerous foreign correspondents are shown in no halting manner in the subjoined letter:—

From Dr. J. A. Lintner, New York State Entomologist.[^[39]]

Albany, N.Y.

May 29, 1889.

My dear Miss Ormerod,—I must congratulate you upon your last Report. It is excellent, and reflects great credit upon you. I am very glad that your letters have been so appreciated that it has been necessary to summon a lady private secretary to your aid. It will be a satisfaction to you that you will now be able to accomplish much more than before. I am led to think whether I should not ask our next Legislature to provide for an assistant for me.

Your kind letter of the 10th inst. was also duly received. How strange, and how very interesting to me, that you should discover Cecidomyia leguminicola (Gnat midge), red maggot, with you, as you have done, working at the root—only “infesting the root,” and not, so far as known, attacking the head. If it occurs on the blossoms, you should have been able to find it there by the time that this reaches you, for, as I have somewhere mentioned, the nearly-mature larva shows a disposition to leave the clover heads very soon after they are picked. You ask if I have observed this form in other cecids of the clover. We have, so far as known, but one other clover cecid, and that is your introduced C. trifolii (Clover leaf midge). The thought suggests itself to examine some of my dried leguminicola larvæ. I am glad to have found in my collection examples preserved in alcohol of the larvæ which I had forgotten. As I put up quite a little quantity of them, I can spare you these, which I am sure will be acceptable to you.

Your investigation of the “warble” presence (p. [110]) effect upon the beef-eater will, I am sure, be of much importance. One of our Western agricultural papers has commenced an investigation. Probably your studies and publications have incited them to it.

March 12, 1894.

In going carefully over several pages of your seventeenth report, which came to me last week, I asked myself, “Is not this the best report that Miss Ormerod has written?” You are pleased to bestow praise on my reports, which from you is agreeable to receive, but I think that I can judge of their true value, and very glad indeed would I be if I could feel that they were up to the standard of yours. These are far from words of flattery, but are said because I believe that you need encouragement. Your reports have high merit and value, beyond similar writings of any of your English contemporaries—yes, far beyond.—As ever, sincerely yours,

J. A. Lintner.

CHAPTER XII
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH BY THE EDITOR (continued)

As a public lecturer Miss Ormerod achieved a high measure of success. The first effort in this capacity was made at the Royal Agricultural College, Cirencester, where as “Special Lecturer on Economic Entomology,” she delivered six interesting and valuable addresses to audiences of about 120 students and professors on: (1) Injurious Insects; (2) Turnip Fly; (3) Effects of Weather on Insects; (4) Wireworm; (5) Insect Prevention; (6) Œstridæ—Warble or Bot Flies. The first was given in October, 1881, and the last in June, 1884. On the first occasion Lord Bathurst, one of the Governors of the College, was present, and Miss Ormerod was placed between Principal McClellan on the one hand and Professor Harker (biology) on the other, as her sister Georgiana humorously remarked afterwards, “for fear her courage should fail and she run away.” Her anxieties in the new capacity knew no bounds.

Although extremely nervous and anxious she succeeded in concealing this from an attentive and appreciative audience, and made an excellent appearance.[^[40]] She declared that while walking from the drawing-room to the large lecture theatre at the opposite corner of the college quadrangle she could not utter a word, and on this, as on other somewhat similar exciting occasions, she experienced a drumming in her head which she failed to moderate by any attempted remedial measures. After about three years’ experience as a supernumerary member of the college staff, it was found that the preliminary preparation of the lectures was robbing her steadily increasing general work of time which was inconveniently spared, and, although it was considered an honour to be invited to give special lectures, she felt it to be a duty to her main work to retire.

During this period one lecture was delivered before the “Institute of Agriculture,” at South Kensington, in April, 1883, in the Lords of Council lecture hall, where as usual she was in a state of trepidation as to what might happen. The audience numbered about five hundred—two hundred and fifty of whom were Government students. The subject was “Insect Injuries to Farm Crops, and their Prevention.” A number of minor incidents were nevertheless disturbing. To begin with, the driver who had been engaged to take the lecturer first to South Kensington and again in the evening to Isleworth, started on the wrong journey first, but the mistake was discovered before he had gone very far astray. Then a chairman had failed to appear and another had to be anxiously watched for at the door. A most suitable person was at last found in the President of the Entomological Society. All went well for a time until Miss Ormerod’s sight on the left side wholly failed. Being subject to attacks of migraine from overwork, she thought one of these had come on, but on moving a little to the right she discovered that a brilliant light had been arranged to fall on the diagrams, and that to her great discomfort she had got into the line of it.

A rather amusing incident occurred as the last distraction. The object was to place the elements of Entomology before the students in the simplest form possible, but a few definitions were first necessary. They were told to realise in the words of Professor Westwood that insects were “Annulose animals, breathing by tracheæ, having the head distinct and provided in the adult stage with six articulated legs, and antennæ, subject also to a series of moultings previously to attaining perfection, whereby wings are ordinarily developed!”

The audience burst out cheering, thinking, as Professor Tanner[^[41]] explained afterwards, that the scientific terms were being used as a joke.

Apropos of this experience she wrote on October 14, 1890, to Mr. Robert Newstead, “If I could find time I would like to form an instructive book, on the plan of which I enclose a few lines—so as to proceed gradually from a foundation well known to the pupils—thus:—

“Q. What is an insect? A. A fly is an insect, so is a moth or a butterfly, or a wasp, or a grasshopper, or a cricket.

“Q. Is a spider an insect? A. No.

“Q. Why not? A. Because it has eight legs, and never has any wings. Insects in their perfect state have six legs, and usually either one or two pairs of wings.

“Q. Why do you say in their perfect state? And so on.

“I believe that it is an absolute mistake to begin with a definition of an insect such as is usually given—half the words of which are utterly without meaning to the student.”

Under strong pressure at a later date, Miss Ormerod delivered in the same hall a course of ten lectures in five consecutive days, on the “Orders of Insects,” and these were reproduced in full in her “Guide to the Methods of Insect Life.”

The organisation was defective, and very small audiences assembled. Professor Axe and others who gave special lectures in the same course had the same experience. Only £10 was paid to Miss Ormerod for her share of the work, a sum which did not cover outlays, and apart from the annoyance of the bungling the fatigue was great.

About this course, Professor Huxley wrote on November 11, 1883:—

“Dear Miss Ormerod,—I am very glad to welcome you as a colleague—and I wish I could come and hear your lectures, being particularly ignorant of the branch of Entomology you have made your own. I shall be very glad if any of my students can find time to profit by your teaching—but I suspect that their hands are pretty full. We shall be very glad to have your sister’s work and thank her for the trouble she has taken.—Ever yours very truly,” &c.

When a copy of the book reached him in the following January he again wrote:—“Many thanks for your ‘Guide to Insect Life.’ I know enough of your portion of work to be sure that it will be clear, accurate, and useful, and I hope that the public will show a due appreciation of it. With best wishes, &c.

“T. H. Huxley.”

Sir Joseph Hooker also wrote as follows:—

Royal Gardens, Kew,

January 11, 1884.

Dear Miss Ormerod,—Pray accept my best thanks for the copy of your “Guide to Methods of Insect Life.” I have read the first 50 pages at intervals of my work with great pleasure and interest. I was an Entomologist before I took to Botany, as was my father before me, and I do enjoy in my old age the account you give of the forgotten habits of the friends of my early youth. I think it is capitally well done and suited to its purpose, and I shall hope to interest my children with it in the holidays. With united sincere regards to you both, most truly yours,

Jos. D. Hooker.

In March, 1882, a paper on “Injurious Insects” was read at a meeting of the Richmond Athenæum. The hall was so crammed that the Council were crushed up on the platform. “At the close of the lecture” (Lady Hooker writes) “Miss Lydia Becker, at that time a vigorous upholder of ‘Woman’s Rights,’ rose to speak, and while praising Miss Ormerod’s able lecture, instanced her work as ‘being a proof of how much a woman could do without the help of man.’ Miss Ormerod, in her reply, thanked Miss Becker, but begged to say that she had no right to the praise accorded to her on the ground of her work being so entirely that of a lone woman, for, she said, ‘No one owes more to the help of man than myself. I have always met with the greatest kindness and most generous aid from my friends of the other sex, and without their constant encouragement my poor efforts would have had no practical result in being of benefit to my fellow men.’”

In the discussion which followed the lecture Sir Joseph Hooker “referred to the great benefit they had derived at Kew Gardens from Miss Ormerod’s researches, remarking that to her and her sister (Georgiana) they owed some of the best illustrations they had of insect ravages upon plants. He could not but allude also to the elegance and clearness of the language employed by Miss Ormerod in her paper as an illustration that scientific matters might be put in a clear and simple form, so that all might understand them.... In conclusion he thanked Miss Ormerod and her sister for their services to science.”

About 1888 an entomological “At Home” was given at Torrington House, St. Albans, when some sixty people assembled in the drawing-room and listened to a most interesting dissertation on the “Hessian Fly,” given by the hostess in a friendly and informal conversational manner.

The Farmers’ Club lecture in 1889 was felt by Miss Ormerod to be the most important and most gratifying of all similar public appearances. She prepared it with infinite care and, as the time fixed for its delivery approached, the state of nervous tension was great. Leading agriculturists were present, and a number of ladies came to make inquiries about all sorts of things, but probably the lecturer would have been equally well pleased had none of her own sex put in an appearance.

In 1882 Miss Ormerod was invited by the Lords of the Committee of Council on Education to become a member of a committee to advise in the improvement of the collections relating to Economic Entomology in the South Kensington and Bethnal Green Museums. The other members of committee were Professor Huxley, Mr. W. Thisleton Dyer, Professor J. O. Westwood, Mr. F. Orpen Bower, Professor Wrightson, and Mr. Moore—Colonel Donnelly and Sir Philip Cunliffe Owen being present officially. After serious consideration and a good deal of pressure from influential quarters, Miss Ormerod accepted the invitation and was a most useful member of committee till her withdrawal from it in April, 1886. She continued, however, to assist the supervision of the work, which went on for some time after. At the first meeting she was asked to prepare a scheme for a series of illustrations of Economic Entomology, and her suggestion of classifying injurious insects by the name of leading plant affected, and not by the Natural Orders of the creatures, was accepted. A collection of cases containing natural specimens in all stages of development, as well as accurate drawings of them, though never completed, was made, at first mainly under Professor Westwood’s direction, but later on, under Miss Ormerod’s supervision. Many of the specimens were taken from Mr. Andrew Murray’s earlier contributions.

The collection was in 1885 removed from Bethnal Green to the Western Exhibition Galleries, South Kensington Museum. The value of Miss Ormerod’s services and the esteem in which she was personally held by her associates in connection with the work of the committee, may be gathered from the subjoined letter sent to her by Professor Huxley.

March 12, 1883.

Dear Miss Ormerod,—Many thanks for the trouble you have taken. Your suggestion about utilising the figures which are not specially wanted for our purpose, for schools, seems to me excellent, and I hope you will bring it forward at our next meeting.

I hope our first discussion has convinced you that we want nothing but to achieve something useful. And as I have at any rate learned how to recognise practical knowledge and common sense, when I meet with them (they are not so common as people imagine) you will find me always ready to do my best to aid in carrying out your views. You really know more about the business than all the rest of us put together.

Yours very truly,

T. H. Huxley.

While Miss Ormerod was associated with the Bethnal Green Museum she was asked to look at the proofs of a series of insect diagrams illustrating “Gardeners’ Friends and Foes” being prepared for publication by the Science and Art Department. She found that an official of the Museum had been guilty of wholesale plagiarism, both in the coloured figures and the descriptive letterpress, and moreover that a number of figures of a popular kind had been introduced which were not drawn with scientific accuracy, that she felt conscientiously impelled to report the irregularities and deficiencies to the authorities. The results were that the diagrams were withdrawn (only a few sets having been presented for private use to certain fortunate individuals); and the removal of the official from the position of trust became a wholesome lesson to those who lightly make use without acknowledgment of the work of others.

At a later date she arranged the descriptive matter of a series of beautiful insect diagrams, the originals of which were drawn and coloured by her sister, Georgiana, for the Royal Agricultural Society, and referred to in the appended facsimile page of a letter addressed to the present writer, and again at p. 210 of her correspondence.

An excellent specimen of Miss Ormerod’s clear and characteristic writing in which she conducted her voluminous correspondence.

May 12^th 1891.
Torrington House St. Albans.
Dear Prof Wallace
Your letter was a great
pleasure to us, and my sister
was delighted to hope that
her diagrams may be of such
general use
I have now written to
Mr. Newman begging him to
write to you replying to
your enquiries,—and also
to send (to your kind acceptance
from my sister) by Parcel post
samples of the diagrams, so
far as they are printed
completely. That is with
the exception of the fly which
you have.
You ought I am sure to
see for yourself just what
it is that we are about

To Miss Anne Hartwell, Miss Ormerod’s private secretary and confidential companion, I am indebted for many of the following incidents in the home life. The two sisters, though they were never robust, enjoyed comparatively good health, when Miss Hartwell, in May, 1888, went to reside with them, and were at all times very busy. Miss Ormerod (Georgiana) usually sat in the dining-room working at her diagrams and Miss Eleanor in the study. They generally worked all the morning, and in the afternoon they would walk out together, take a drive, or pay calls. They frequently had visitors for a few days, and nephews and nieces would come and go—which was always a pleasure to them. They were devoted to each other and spent much time together. Miss Georgiana’s death, on August 19, 1896, was a sad blow to Miss Eleanor, who missed her sister’s companionship and sympathy dreadfully. To a casual observer time seemed to heal her wounded feelings and she appeared cheerful and bright, but in reality she was never again quite the same person—they had been such lifelong friends and companions.

In a letter to the Rev. C. J. Bethune she wrote on October 12, 1896:—

“I thank you gratefully for your kind comforting letter; believe me such words as yours are a great consolation and support to me, for I do miss my dear sister exceedingly.

“For her I fully hope that she is safe, and happy, and I love to think of her as without fears or doubts serving the Lord she so humbly trusted—but we were so completely one that I scarcely feel the same person without her. It was not only our sisterly affection and colleagueship, but she had such a good judgment that I am constantly longing for her sound sense to help me. There is no use in idle grief, and I am fairly well again. I have not at all put aside work through all my sorrow, for I felt this would answer no good purpose, and now I am working on my next Annual Report and am arranging to have a good portrait of her as a frontispiece (plate [XXVII].). I think she would like it, and I am sure she would have been deeply grateful for the kind respect paid by the good friends whose friendship she so exceedingly valued. I scarcely know how to write about it—there is so much I should like to say. Perhaps I had better not write more, but indeed I value your beautiful words of comfort which I have repeatedly read.”

A touchingly sympathetic notice of the death appeared in Miss Ormerod’s Annual Report for 1896.

Miss Ormerod rose early, breakfasted at eight o’clock, and then read the “Times.” On getting to work she made a special point of replying to inquiries first, saying it served no good purpose to keep people waiting for an answer; and, as a matter of fact, delay or hesitation found no place in any of her actions. Frequently there were specimens to examine and report upon, and probably to put aside in a place of safety to permit of maturation or further development and to undergo subsequent examination.

After the entomological work was finished—work which was a real pleasure, but proved a severe strain as the Annual Report was taking form—her personal correspondence was attended to. She wrote with great facility and with extraordinary rapidity and accuracy. She had many colonial and continental correspondents who held standing invitations to pay her visits, when in this country. Many came, and graciously she received them, and courteously and royally she entertained them with much pleasure to herself. None so honoured can ever forget the cordiality of the breezy welcome which, accompanied by her hearty and genuinely natural and friendly laugh, were merely harbingers of the intellectual treat and the other good things that were in store for them.

Among her most intimate immediate friends were Lord[^[42]] and Lady Grimthorpe, the Bishop of St. Albans (Dr. Festing) and his sister, the Dean (Walter John Lawrence, M.A.), General and Mrs. Bigge, Colonel and Miss Cartwright, Dr. and Mrs. Norman, and Dr. Lipscomb and Miss Lipscomb. She was always pleased to see friends who called, and she was very witty and cheerful with them. It was not at all necessary that they should be scientific. One of the little group mentioned, simply and perhaps too modestly explains, “I always think that when Miss Ormerod sent for me, she descended to my level, and our conversation was generally on the most homely subjects. She would be most interested in the little events of our everyday life and thoroughly enter into our pleasures and enjoyments.”

The lively sense of humour which has already been mentioned as a family characteristic remained with her throughout life. The following little anecdote told by Mrs. Evans of Rowancroft, Dorking, is also illustrative of the personal coolness and power of action in times of difficulty which were conspicuous among Miss Ormerod’s attributes, and it shows also “the quietly determined manner in which she did some things.”

“My poor little story was told to me a good many years ago. My aunt was lunching with some friends, and the peace of the entertainment was suddenly disturbed by the arrival of a large and lively hornet. No one else ventured to interfere with the enemy, but Miss Ormerod waited quietly till the insect came close to her, caught it in her hand, and forthwith deposited it in one of the little chip boxes which she generally carried in her pockets. I leave you to imagine the astonishment and admiration of the other guests, and the quiet chuckle with which my aunt wound up her story with the remark, ‘Of course I knew it was a “drone,” by the length of the antennæ.’”

Miss Ormerod was not the least nervous in the sense of being afraid. When just a girl living at Sedbury she became the centre of admiration of the workmen on her father’s estate by fearlessly seizing a farmyard dog by the back of the neck and hauling him off her own dog, who had been rudely assaulted. Great was the applause of “Miss Eleanor’s sperrit.”

PLATE XXI.
Ap Adam Oak, Sedbury Park.

Hedgehog Oak, Sedbury Park.

Another incident with a dog of a much more dangerous character is best given in her own words: “I only remember one instance of rabies. The animal attacked was one of two beautiful Clumber spaniels which had been left one day at our house with a message that the sender, a friend of my brother, desired him to select one of them, and accept it as a gift. The two pretty creatures, named Cæsar and Pompey, were introduced into our establishment, and one of them—Cæsar—became a great favourite with my father. How long it was after their arrival I do not remember, but one day Cæsar vanished, and in the course of the afternoon, although he was not one of the house dogs, he came to me as I was standing in the front hall. To my astonishment when I noticed him as usual, he gave a kind of scream, or extraordinary howl, such as I had never heard before, and I saw that the expression of his eyes was wild and distressed to an entirely unnatural degree. The strange scream made me suspect what might be wrong, and I called one of the head men. We took the dog, who was perfectly gentle, into the butler’s pantry and shut the door so that he might not escape, whilst we tried to find out what was amiss. I did not much like the business, but it happened I was the only one at home, excepting a lady relation, who, thinking “discretion the better part of valour,” mounted herself pro tem. out of harm’s way, on the top of a very large stone table, and awaited results in safety. I knew that offering water was a very partial test, but I had some poured out. The effect was instantaneous. The moment the poor dog heard the sound he almost flew to me, as if for protection, and tried to wrap his head in my dress so as to exclude the sound, calling out as if in great trouble. I had no right to have my father’s favourite dog destroyed on a suspicion in his temporary absence, and the dog so far was not violent; it appeared to me that the only reasonable course to adopt was to have him chained securely and led away to an empty stable, where he was fastened to a pole and the door shut. By this course no harm could happen, except in prolonging the poor creature’s sufferings. These, however, though increasingly violent, were not endured for very long. By the time my father returned, in about an hour, the dog was tearing the woodwork all around him to pieces. He was at once destroyed, the attack being pronounced, by those better versed in the matter than myself, undoubtedly a case of rabies.”

Miss Ormerod’s brother, Dr. E. L. Ormerod, of Brighton, author of “British Social Wasps,” testified to the courage and skill with which she assisted him in taking the hanging wasps’ nests from trees. The “Ap Adam” oak shown in plate XXI. which she climbed after a hornet’s nest by means of the library folding ladder, was one of the very ancient hollow oaks in Sedbury Park, about one-third of a mile from the house. She had a sick headache next day about which her brother John made the sympathetic (?) remark, “If young ladies will play at lamplighters they must take the consequences!” The Hedgehog oak, at the root of which in plate XXI. Miss Ormerod is seen sitting in rather an uncomfortable position, was another hollow remnant of the primeval forest. She had remarked that she thought she was sitting on a wasps’ nest when Waring, her second brother, promptly admonished her in the interests of the safety of the party to “sit tight”! The two hollow shells of what must have been at one time splendid timber trees, were historically interesting, having been boundary marks of the country referred to in the time of Edward III. Both trees have been cleared away and the ancient oak now known as that of “Ap Adam” stands only a few hundred yards from the original tree, within the moat which formerly surrounded old Badam’s Court. There are several other very ancient oaks in the park. Two on the left of the carriage drive, going in the direction of the mansion house, were christened “Darby and Joan” by Miss Ormerod.

On one occasion the eldest sister, Mary, had the misfortune to run a crochet hook through her hand. The mother fainted away. Miss G. S. Ormerod, who supplied this information, concludes, “My Aunt Eleanor fetched her forceps, nipped off the hook and drew out the stem without waiting for the doctor’s arrival, showing not only her courage but her presence of mind.” The same authority goes on to say:—

“She was very fond of children and young people. When staying at Sedbury, we always enjoyed our walks with her. She made everything interesting. She taught me a great deal about insects, helped me to begin a collection of butterflies, &c., showing me how to destroy them mercifully and how to set them out properly. I remember stuffing a splendid dragon-fly under her superintendence.

“Fully occupied as her life was up to the time of her last illness, yet she was always full of sympathy and interest for her poorer neighbours, always ready to assist in any good work that came before her.

“You may like to hear how my aunt was beloved by the servants for her practical kindness and for the keen interest she took in all outdoor surroundings. Any curiosity discovered by them, whether animal or vegetable, was always carefully brought in for her inspection. Many were the snakes, birds, nests, insects, fungi, &c., handed to her, especially at the time when she did so much modelling.”

She maintained throughout a practical interest in the survivors of her mother’s old servants, and she extended her kindness and thoughtfulness to those of her own household. Her strong loyalty was curiously instanced on one of these occasions, on the King’s accession to the throne, when she summoned all her household, including outdoor servants, and produced some rare old white port in which they drank the King’s health. She subscribed liberally to St. Albans’ charities and other public objects in the Abbey parish in which she lived, as well as in St. Michael’s, where she attended church. Dr. Lipscomb gives, in a few words, “An instance of her great generosity, so well known to all who were intimate with her, though she ever did such deeds by stealth and blushed to find them fame.” He goes on: “I may mention a day she asked me to see her. Being rather late I apologised, telling her that the annual meeting of the governors of our local hospital detained me. She said she hoped we had had a successful meeting, and on my saying ‘Yes, with the exception that the accounts showed a deficit of some thirty odd pounds,’ she immediately produced her cheque book and gave me a cheque for the amount.” She also extended personal sympathy and practical help to many of her poor neighbours by whom she was loved and esteemed.

She never lost taste for the pastime of modelling in plaster of Paris, and at leisure moments, when unable to go out of doors, she would occupy spare time in this way. She modelled some beautiful specimens of common fruits and made the cast of her own hand. In the evening, when tired of writing, she would read or crochet. Her great skill in what is generally regarded as exclusively woman’s work is independently testified to by Miss Emma Swan, niece of Professor Westwood, who is so well able to speak with authority, in the following words: “What particularly struck me as a young girl at the time I visited her was the very beautiful needlework she found time to do, and pleasure in doing. Whatever she did, she seemed to do well!” From the same source we learn that “she sang and played the piano very well indeed.” She also composed music with facility and might have developed musical tastes, but for the overpowering love of science which was the absorbing interest of her life.[^[43]]

We have it on excellent authority that the very greatest pleasure of all her public recognitions was experienced on April 14, 1900, in the McEwan Hall, Edinburgh, when the LL.D. of the University was conferred upon her in company with a group of distinguished recipients of that honour[^[44]] before an assemblage of about 3,000 people. The trials of the occasion, which are described in her letters, were greatly lessened by the courtesy and kindness and whispered words of encouragement of his Excellency, the American Ambassador, who was placed beside her during the ceremonial, and preceded her in undergoing the ordeal of capping. In presenting her to the Vice-Chancellor (Principal Sir Wm. Muir) the Dean of the Faculty of Law (Sir Ludovic Grant) said, with his usual eloquence:—

“A duty now devolves upon you, sir, which has devolved upon none of your predecessors, and of which the performance will render the present occasion memorable in the annals of the University. Our roll of Hon. Graduates in Law contains the names of many illustrious men, but you will search it in vain for the name of a woman. To-day, however, a new roll is to be opened—a roll of illustrious women; and it is matter for congratulation that this roll should begin with a name so honoured as that of Miss Ormerod.

“The pre-eminent position which Miss Ormerod holds in the world of science is the reward of patient study and unwearying observation. Her investigations have been chiefly directed towards the discovery of methods for the prevention of the ravages of those insects which are injurious to orchard, field, and forest. Her labours have been crowned with such success, that she is entitled to be hailed as the protectress of agriculture and the fruits of the earth—a beneficent Demeter of the nineteenth century. It would take long to enumerate her contributions to Entomological and Phenological literature, but I may select for mention the valuable series of reports extending over twenty years, the preparation of which involved correspondence with all parts of the world. Remarkable, too, is the list of the honours which she has received. She was the first lady to be admitted a Fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society, and she has been awarded the Silver Medal of the ‘Société Nationale d’Acclimatation’ of France. To these distinctions the University of Edinburgh, sensible of her conspicuous services, and not unmindful of her generous benefactions, now adds its Doctorate in Laws.”

The honour referred to, conferred by our cultured neighbours across the channel, was publicly announced in the press in the following words:—

“At the Annual Meeting on the 25th of June, 1891, of the Société Nationale d’Acclimatation de France, M. Le Myre de Vilers, president, in the chair, the large silver medal of the Society, bearing the portrait of Geoffrey Saint-Hilaire, was decreed to Miss Eleanor A. Ormerod, of St. Albans, England, for her work in Economic or Applied Entomology.”

To a confidential correspondent she wrote, “You will believe that this pleases me very much.”

Plate [XXII]. shows this medal with three other silver and two gold medals that were presented to Miss Ormerod between the years 1870 and 1900 by home and foreign institutions.

Miss Ormerod preserved very few letters except those necessary for scientific or business purposes, and these she classified and fastened into books for convenience of reference. Nothing else, and especially nothing which if returned to the writer, would hereafter lead to unpleasantness, escaped ordeal of fire. After keeping letters on general subjects for a few days, she would tear them up. The result is that, of the mass of interesting contributions on many subjects, which poured in to the oracle, first of Isleworth and latterly of St. Albans, from all sorts and conditions of men and women, the few sample letters written by prominent public men and reproduced in these pages, are almost all that remain. To some of her relatives she wrote very amusing letters, but—no doubt inspired by the desire to avoid all possible danger of hurting the feelings of people referred to—she exacted the promise that they should not be preserved.

Key to Medals Presented to Miss Ormerod and Shown on Plate [xxii].

Royal Horticultural Society,

Victoria Medal of Honour,

1900.

(Gold Medal.)

Royal Horticultural Society.

For Collection of Economic

Entomology.

1870.

(Silver Medal.)

Société Nationale d’Acclimatation

de France.

Entomologie Appliquée.

1899.

(Silver Medal.)

University of Moscow, 1872

Emperor Peter I., 30th May,

1672.

Emperor Alexander II., 30th May,

1872.

(Gold Medal.)

International Health Exhibition,

London, 1884.

(Silver Medal.)

Moscow Polytechnic Exhibition,

1872.

(Silver Medal.)

PLATE XXII.
Miss Ormerod’s Medals, received between 1870 and 1900, as recognition by Scientific Bodies of her Scientific Work.
(pp. [96], [304].)

CHAPTER XIII
LETTERS TO COLONEL COUSSMAKER AND MR. ROBERT SERVICE

Surface Caterpillars—Leopard and Puss Moths—“Hill-Grubs” of the Antler Moth.

The letters in this the first chapter of correspondence (dealing with a number of moths, the caterpillars of which are destructive to vegetation), were written while Miss Ormerod was resident at Isleworth, and after she had issued seven of her Annual Reports. Apart from the Entomology discussed, the letters show how ready she was to recognise and to commend the meritorious scientific work of others.

To Colonel Coussmaker, Westwood, near Guildford.

Dunster Lodge, Spring Grove, Isleworth,

August 1, 1885.

Dear Sir,—Perhaps the best way I can reply to your inquiry about the coloured sheets is to enclose the short description, on the wrapper of one of my reports.[^[45]]

I should mention, though, that they are the property of the Royal Agricultural Society; I only drew them. The insects are drawn greatly magnified, with a view to hanging the sheets on walls of schools. The history, and the simplest means of prevention are given in the very plainest words I could find.

Have you my current report? It contains a good deal on that great pest the Ox warble fly (fig. [5])—contributed by practical men—cattle owners, veterinary observers and the like. I would, with the greatest pleasure, ask your acceptance of a copy if you would permit me to do so. If you have studied its habits in India, I should greatly like to be in communication with you on the subject. The Colonial Company procured me a few estimates of damage to hides—which were of much service as showing comparative amount of injury in different parts of the globe, but I much want to find whether in India the larva is found to penetrate below the subcutaneous tissue into the flesh. I am aware from one of my contributors connected with inspecting army supplies in India, that at one time meat for the troops was apt to be so damaged from what he considered to be this attack, that it was to some extent useless. The locality was not far from Kurrachee. If you, as a student of insect life, could give me any information on this point, I should be thankful for the addition to the notes I am still collecting.

August 4, 1885.

Many thanks to you for so kindly taking the trouble to write about the injury to flesh possibly caused by the Warble maggot; it would be of great service to know about it. Doubtless your care of your cattle had a great deal to do with their being free from injury—if we could but get even the moderate amount of care applied which is needed to put on a dressing when attack is seen it would make an enormous difference.

The Dart or Turnip moth caterpillar is doing damage now—and I do not believe there is a better remedy than scraping out the grubs, but this is very troublesome till they are larger. I see in a report on the “Cutworms,” as they call these creatures in the U.S.A., that there is very much less injury from them on ground which has been well salted. It is thought that the salt drawn up into the plant makes it distasteful to the caterpillars. I do not know how this may be, but in a district of the Eastern Counties reported from last year—where previously they had been quite set against anything “artificial”—they were finding the turnips on salted lands answered very much the best. I should much like to try the effect of watering with salt and water, at a safe strength, but from my own garden being so perpetually used for trial ground it is getting free of regular pests. I have found watering with soft soap and a little mineral oil (pp. 66-67, eighth report, 1884), act well on these caterpillars. The application appeared to paralyse the creature so that it could not get away from the poisonous effects of the mixture, which is a very important point.

I found this mixture act well on Cabbage green fly, and if you should try it I shall be very much obliged for any observation. The great point is to mix the ingredients at boiling heat. I would try whether the strength noted was safe for any special plant. I rather think it is for cabbage, but certainly not for young leafage of roses. I shall be very glad if I can be of any help in the matter.

(a) 1, Turnip moth; 2, caterpillar.

(b) 1, Heart-and-dart moth; 2, caterpillar; 3, chrysalis in earth-cell.
FIG. 1.—SURFACE CATERPILLARS: OF THE TURNIP OR DART MOTH, AGROTIS SEGETUM, OCHSENHEIMER, AND OF THE HEART-AND-DART MOTH,
AGROTIS EXCLAMATIONIS, LINN.

Torrington House, St. Albans,

January 26, 1888.

Many thanks for your note received this morning. I shall hope to add some of it to my Turnip Caterpillars paper, which is not yet gone to press. Thank you for the offer of the specimens, but I do not quite see my way to showing live ones yet. My lecture [at the London Farmers’ Club] is a terribly anxious prospect to myself, but I can but do my best, and I am endeavouring with the utmost care to form something that may be acceptable, but I am sure you will believe me that to address such a skilled audience is rather anxious work. I should much like to lay before the members of the Club some ideas for their consideration as to how some reasonable amount of plain serviceable information might be got abroad. I do not believe in all this lecturing, examining and talking of classification. To my thinking it is beginning at the wrong end, and that the learners need first to make sure of their facts in the field and classify them when they have got them, if they do it at all.

Female, head of male, and caterpillar.
FIG. 2.—WOOD LEOPARD MOTH, ZEUZERA ÆSCULI, LINN.

February 17, 1890.

I have examined your caterpillars carefully, and I find that of the oak stem to correspond exactly with the larva of the Wood leopard moth, the Zeuzera æsculi. This is commonly found in (or at least it is usually sent me from) wood of fruit trees, but it attacks oak as well as forest trees of various kinds. Your specimen has also one of the characteristic habits of ejecting brown fluid from its mouth on disturbance. I think you have my “Manual,” and there you would find a figure of the moth and larva. Your specimen is rather full coloured, but they vary greatly in this respect.

Your other caterpillar is a Lepidopterous larva, but I cannot name it with certainty. It is quite possible that it is the larva of the “Hornet Clearwing,” the Trochilium (= Sesia) bembeciforme, but I have never seen a specimen, although the attack is said to be common, especially to Salix caprea. The attack is stated to be mostly in the lower part of the stem. I think that you very likely have Loudon’s “Arboretum” in your library, and if so you would find some good notes and fair figures of the hornet-like moth and its larva and pupa in situ in the wood at pp. 1481 and 1482, vol. iii. The larva is nearly dead now, so that the form is altered, but I do not see any reason against it being this kind; still I cannot say it is.

I have a very curious report of much damage attributed to Puss moth caterpillars at a locality in Lincolnshire, and am waiting with much interest for specimens to see what the cause can be. I rather expect it will be rabbits!

Yours very truly,

Eleanor A. Ormerod.

Male and caterpillar (life size).
FIG. 3.—PUSS MOTH, DICRANURA VINULA, LINN.

[The following notes by Mr. Robert Service[^[46]] are explanatory of subjoined correspondence.

“The ‘Hill-Grub’ (the caterpillar of the Antler moth, Charæas graminis). Sheep-farmers are threatened with another plague. The ‘hill-grub’ has often done considerable damage to the upland grass-lands, notably in the years from 1830 to 1835. Just now complaints are rife from farms in many parts of the wide districts ravaged by the Voles[^[47]] (in 1891-92-93). As usual the farmers look on these ‘hill-grubs’ as very sudden arrivals, but this is not the case, for last autumn the moths which these larvæ produce were in extraordinary swarms, and far in advance of their normal numbers. I remember noting at the end of last September when coming down from the neighbourhood of Loch Dungeon one evening in the twilight, how unusually abundant the Antler moths were flying. The evening was mild and very moist, and just as we got on to the level ground at the outside of a moss of perhaps six acres in extent, we found Antler moths flying in countless myriads in every direction. The time was 6.40, and there was still enough of the gloaming left to see the moths quite distinctly on every side, flying just below the level of the grass-seed heads.

“On August 23rd I happened to be going across the farm of Townhead, in Closeburn parish, Dumfriesshire, and about 10.10 a.m. the Antler moths appeared in myriads. Thousands upon thousands of them were flying in all directions, most of them just amongst and over the flowering heads of the spret, Juncus articulatus; but many were flying higher in the air, and some mounted up out of sight. It was a wonderful scene, and one that I would not have cared to miss. The effect was altogether different to that presented by the evening flight I saw near Loch Dungeon in the previous autumn.

FIG. 4.—ANTLER OR GRASS MOTH, CHARÆAS GRAMINIS,
AND CATERPILLARS.

“A party of gentlemen fishing from near the Holm of Dalquhairn for some five or six miles down the Ken found all the trout they caught perfectly crammed with these ‘hill-grub’ caterpillars. Old shepherds will tell of times when they were so numerous that after sudden thundershowers the sheep-drains have been completely dammed up with their bodies. The moth deposits its eggs, which produce larvæ that descend to and feed mostly about the roots of grasses during the autumn and early winter. After hybernation they commence in March and April to feed again with redoubled energy, and they turn to pupæ at the end of June and during July, producing the moths again in a few weeks (the perfect insect flies during August and September). Thus their cycle of existence in these various stages extends the whole year round. Their worst natural enemy is the common rook at the season when these birds betake themselves and their young broods to the hills, and I have reason to believe that many other birds devour them. The blackheaded gull, Larus ridibundus, and the common gull, L. canus, are very fond of the larvæ. Curlews take a good many, golden plovers and lapwings pick them up in numbers. Cuckoos also feed upon them, and I have found the stomachs of snow buntings, shot on the hills at midwinter, filled with these grubs” (R. S.).

Miss Ormerod says: “The caterpillars, when full grown, are about an inch or rather more long, with brown head, and the body of a deep bronze colour, exceedingly shiny on the back and on the upper part of the sides. The bronze colour is divided lengthwise by three pale lines, the back and side stripes meeting or almost meeting above the tail, and another narrower pale stripe or line runs lower down along each side.”]

To Robert Service, Esq., Maxwelltown, Dumfries.

Torrington House, St. Albans,

August 1, 1894.

Dear Sir,—It is many years since you gave me any of your good observations, but indeed I would gladly have profited by them, and it was only lately that I knew you were continuing them. Perhaps Mr. Bailey, the editor,[^[48]] may have mentioned to you that I was so struck with the paper which he sent me, in which you mention C. graminis, that interpreting the nom de plume (“Mabie Moss”) literally, I wrote to him expressing my admiration and asking if I might be put in communication with the writer; and now may I prefer the request to yourself that, if you please, you will kindly tell me anything you are inclined to favour me with about this recent outbreak of the C. graminis. Would it not be of great interest if we could make out something more about the parasites? There are, firstly, the threadworms—Mermis. Do you chance to have identified them? I have got no further than the specialist to whom I sent specimens, thinking they were most likely Mermis albicans—but this he was going to investigate. Then there is the bacterian infestation—the “flacherie,”[^[49]] as they call it in silk-worms. This seems to me of great practical interest; and, thirdly, the larval parasitism of the C. graminis larvæ. I had so exceedingly few specimens that I could not work up the matter, but, whilst one cocoon sent to me appeared to be that of an Ichneumon, the only large larva which I found certainly in many respects resembled that of a Tachina fly. I should greatly like, if agreeable to yourself, to hear from you again on entomological matters. Besides the pleasure, it is a great advantage to me to have contributions of skilled and experienced information, and I would indeed most scrupulously acknowledge to whom I was indebted.

August 3, 1894.

I am much obliged to you for taking the trouble to send the morsels of C. graminis caterpillars. As you say, I am afraid we could hardly get results from them, but still with bacteria presence I do not know but dried bits may show something when moistened, so I am keeping them for the present. That enormous appearance of the imagos must have been a wonderful sight; I should have liked to see it—and what (I wonder) will be the result?

Pretty surely I suppose there will be egg-laying and a consequent presence of larvæ? But if your convenience allowed you to inspect say two months hence, would it not be very interesting to ascertain—absolutely make sure—whether there is a presence of the “hill-grubs” or whether the parasitism of their parents has been transmitted, to the weakening or destruction of their descendants? If we found no grubs, nor grubs with “flacherie” present, what a very interesting discovery this would be!

September 14, 1894.

I am writing a few lines at once on receipt of your letter, first to thank you for your geographical note, which helps me very much. [These attacks of “hill-grubs” were more or less general over the hill country of Kirkcudbrightshire and over the adjacent sheep-farms in Ayrshire, the Dumfriesshire hills, and the contiguous sheep-farm districts in Lanarkshire, Peebles, Selkirk, and Roxburgh. Seven counties were affected to my knowledge. R.S.] What a widespread outburst this has been! But I also write to beg you not to suppose for one minute that I see any reason to doubt what we have had laid down for such a length of time about date of hatching of larvæ of C. graminis. Mr. Wm. Buckler[^[50]] “lumped” his observations of this and two other species, and it seems to me that what happened to caterpillars, which I gather he observed in captivity, in no way militates against correctness of other people’s out-of-door observations.

With many thanks for all the information you give me.

November 20, 1894.

I am very much obliged to you for the very interesting note you have let me have about these dipterous parasites[^[51]] of the C. graminis. How fortunate you have been to secure them, and in such good order too! As you have been kind enough to give me two of your specimens, I think I will presently send one of them to Mr. Meade, of Bradford. I am sure he would value it very much, and would doubtless identify it, which would be a help to me, for as you know I do not like to rest without verification on my own dipterous identifications. You would not mind about this part, as doubtless if you have not yourself identified, Mr. Percy H. Grimshaw, Museum of Science and Art, Edinburgh, would see to it (pp. [149], [185]).

Do you ever come across the so-called “Turnip Mud-beetle,” Helophorus rugosus, in your country? I had the beetle some years ago, as doing harm to turnip leafage, but we could not find the larva. Lately we found a larva doing a deal of mischief in the same neighbourhood by burrowing galleries in the top of turnips, and it struck me we might have what we wanted to complete the history. So I sent it to Canon Fowler, and he identified as beyond doubt Helophorus and being found where H. r. resorts, it is hardly open to doubt that we have got parent and child. Please excuse a short letter, for I am working as hard as I can manage.

Yours very truly,

Eleanor A. Ormerod.

[The parasitic and other enemies of the “hill-grub” are so effective in their attacks that in the year following a great increase in numbers a normal level of occurrence is invariably restored.]

CHAPTER XIV
LETTERS TO MR. WILLIAM BAILEY.

The Ox warble—Its destruction by the Aldersey Schoolboys—Annual gift of prize money—The Royal Party at St. Albans’ Show.

In addition to the entomological value of the next group of letters dealing chiefly with Ox warbles, Miss Ormerod’s unselfish interest in promoting a wider knowledge of her subject is well shown in her words of appreciation and encouragement to Mr. Bailey in connection with his work (especially in relation to the success of correspondence with the Duke of Westminster), and the practical inducements, as well as sympathy, extended to his pupils.

To Wm. Bailey, Esq., Aldersey, Grammar School, Bunbury, Tarporley, Cheshire.

Torrington House, St. Albans,

November 24, 1887.

Dear Mr. Bailey,—I am very much obliged to you indeed for kindly letting me see the documents which I now return, after most careful perusal, with many thanks. It is indeed satisfactory that the good work of our boys (destroying warbles), should have given such valuable help in this matter, which is so important to all who have to do with cattle, and consequently to the nation. The approval of His Grace the Duke of Westminster (so kindly given, too) will add great weight, and I am heartily glad also to see the Hon. Cecil Parker’s confirmation from personal experiment and knowledge of the soundness of the plan and its success. I think if I can get time that I will write to him, to mention how strongly the many letters which I have received this year confirm the good effects of removal of the maggots (2 of fig. [5], and fig. [7]), and likewise the prevention (in almost every case mentioned) of summer disturbance of the cattle.

I thought you would not object to my keeping a copy of your letter to his Grace.

The Committee of the “London Farmers’ Club” which I daresay you know more about than I do, but which I believe to be the great Farmers’ Club of England, has sent me an urgent request to read them a paper on Injurious Insects, at their meeting place, the Salisbury Square Hotel, London, in next April. Professor Herbert Little, one of the Council of the Royal Agricultural Society, brought me the message, and at first I felt fairly frightened at the idea, and tried to “make excuse,” for it is a somewhat anxious prospect (in the words of old John Knox) for a gentlewoman to look in the face of so many “bearded men and not be over much afraid,” but I got such serious remonstrance, almost rebuke, from various quarters that I have consented to endeavour to prepare as good a paper as I can, and read it myself. Now if you permit me—I think that in the portion about warbles it would be very useful (and much more telling than any words of my own) to give your terse, clear and attractively worded account of what really has happened.

1, Egg; 2, maggot; 3 and 4, chrysalis-case; 5 and 6, fly. 3 and 5, natural size, after Bracy Clark; the other figures after Brauer, and all magnified.
FIG. 5.—OX WARBLE FLY, OR BOT FLY, HYPODERMA BOVIS, DE GEER.

FIG. 6.—PIECE OF YEARLING SKIN WITH 402 WARBLE-HOLES.
(Greatly reduced by photography.)

The following extract is the chief part of the letter by Mr. Bailey to the Duke of Westminster (October 28, 1887):—

My Lord Duke,—I was very thankful to see by last Saturday’s Chester Chronicle, that at the Chester Dairy Show you drew the attention of our farmers to the enormous loss caused by the presence of ox warbles in our cattle. During the past three years, I have been directing the notice of my pupils to the mischief done by these warbles, and, as we have now nearly stamped out this pest in Bunbury Parish, it has occurred to me that your Grace might be interested in learning the course which we have taken, and also in seeing how very easily our farmers might get rid of this enemy. The great majority of the boys in this school are either sons of farmers, or of farm labourers. After the boys had received from me a short lesson on the Warble fly, they were asked to examine their cattle at home, and to bring to school as many specimens as they could collect of the maggots of this fly. Hundreds were squeezed out and brought in the course of a few days. One boy alone destroyed 230 of these warble grubs in the spring of 1885 by the application of common cart grease and sulphur to the spiracle in the black tipped tail of the maggot or by squeezing out the maggots. [Vide Miss Ormerod’s ninth Annual Report on Injurious Insects and Common Farm Pests, p. 92.] Last Easter I desired my pupils, during the week’s holiday, to examine carefully the live stock at home for ox warble and to report to me. I enclose a copy of the first list which I received, and I am sure it will satisfy your Grace that this pest may easily be stamped out, if our farmers, their sons, or their labourers would apply the smear, or press out the maggots and destroy them. School boys can do this work, and feel a pleasure in the task. What has been accomplished by Bunbury boys can be equally well done by the boys of any other village school.[^[52]]

FIG. 7.—PIECE OF UNDER SIDE OF WARBLED HIDE; WARBLES ABOUT
HALF SIZE.
From a Photo by Messrs. Byrne, Richmond, Surrey.

FIG 8.—BREATHING TUBES OF MAGGOT (TO WHICH THE SMEAR IS APPLIED),
MAGGOT, AND PRICKLES OUTSIDE SKIN OF MAGGOT (ALL MAGNIFIED).

[A leaflet which Miss Ormerod circulated widely says:—From £3,000,000 to £4,000,000 are lost annually through these pests. One-half the fat beasts killed in this country are afflicted with this grub. The farmer loses on his stock from poorer condition, and from death; from less yield of milk, and damage to all, especially to fattening beasts, and cows from their tearing full gallop about the fields, besides loss to the butcher of from a halfpenny to a penny per pound on warbled hides. Look at the under side of the newly flayed hide of a warbled beast and see the grub cells (fig. [7]). Maggots may be squeezed out, or easily killed by putting a dab of cart grease and sulphur, McDougall’s Smear, or anything that will choke them in the opening of the warble, and the fly may be prevented from striking by dressing the beasts’ backs in summer.]

May I add that during the past five years I have been drawing the attention of the boys to insects, which are injurious to food crops. They are quite familiar with such pests as the leather jacket, wireworm, turnip and mangold fly, caterpillars of the magpie moth, and the gooseberry and currant sawfly, &c., &c., for hundreds of living specimens have been brought to the school, bird’s-nesting having to a very great extent been superseded by this new pursuit. The boys, having become well acquainted with the pests, were instructed as to the best methods of prevention and remedy. These boys will, in the course of a very few years, be the farmers and farm labourers of this district, and I am satisfied that even the little instruction which I am able to give them in what I may call “Practical Entomology” will then be found to be of considerable use to them.—W. BAILEY.[^[53]]

Moth at rest, and with wings spread; caterpillar walking.
FIG. 9.—MAGPIE MOTH (CURRANT AND GOOSEBERRY), ABRAXAS
GROSSULARIATA, LINN.

November 24, 1887.[^[54]]

Dear Mr. Bailey,—The Farmers’ Club meeting will be an exceptionally rare opportunity of pushing forward this, and some other important matters, as well as of laying before some of our leading agriculturists some important facts about a few of the pests of the corn crops of last season’s notoriety. You will think my letter endless, but I want to congratulate you most heartily on your good success in the examinations (which must be a weary work to prepare for), and also on that of your assistant master and teacher, which is indeed encouraging, and to say how sorry we are to hear of your illness. I trust, if it please God, that you may have comfortable health again—it makes such a difference.

Since my sister and I came to St. Albans we are almost like different people. We have a beautiful house (plate [XIX].) with such thick walls that we do not feel the changes of temperature, and a lovely country view along the valley. We have also met with a most kindly reception, and, last but not least amongst blessings and comforts for which we are deeply grateful, is that educated earnest clergy form a decided element in the Society. But now I ought only to add thanks and very kind regards from us both.

December 11, 1887.

I must tell you the pleasure with which I heard your letter to the Duke of Westminster read at the “Seeds and Plants Diseases” Committee of the Royal Agricultural Society on Tuesday, and recommended for report to the Council, and I am glad to see it on the Society’s report sheet sent me this morning, as being recommended for publication. I think this will do a great deal of good, and it cannot, I think, fail to be a great satisfaction to yourself that the excellent work done under your guidance and direction should thus be of such extended service throughout the land. I also figure to myself how pleased the good lads will be!

Will you accept the enclosed photo of my new and most comfortable home (plate [XIX].); it gives a good idea of it, excepting in not quite showing the very rapid slope down from the terrace flower beds.

It would be a great and very true pleasure if when you can spare time you would look in on us here for a couple of nights; I am sure that with our old Abbey and the many things of interest here, and some chat which you would let us have between whiles, the time would not lag. There are both pleasure and benefit in the work you allow me a part in. Pray believe me always, with kind regards and good wishes from us both.

Yours sincerely,

Eleanor A. Ormerod.

[On the warble question Miss Ormerod wrote on April 22, 1899, to Dr. Fletcher[^[55]]:—

“Just now I am working hard on Warble affairs. The butchers (that is, leading men among them) very much wish that what is called ‘licked’ beef should be inquired into. I do not know whether you are troubled by this in Canada, but it is an alteration that takes place on the outside of the carcass of the animal beneath a badly warbled part of the hide. This part becomes soft and wet and blackish, and is popularly supposed to be soaked with moisture from the unlucky animal licking itself to soothe the irritation. Really it is the result of the chronic inflammation of the badly warbled hide. This causes much loss to butchers, and if I can get it well brought forward I think we shall through this rouse the farmers to better attention. The authorities at our Royal Veterinary College are most kindly helping me, and I hope before long to have enough sound information to be able to publish a paper on it.”

To Mr. Medd[^[56]] Miss Ormerod also wrote in Nov., 1900:—

“Do you chance to have noticed that the Warble fly of the United States, the Hypoderma lineata, is considered to be quite a distinct species to our H. bovis? I believe that investigation has proved that our bovis is very rarely found in the U.S.A., just as their lineata is very rarely, indeed, found here. Practically (that is, so far as injury to the hide is concerned), the trouble is similar, both in method of operation and in the frightful amount of damage caused; but it has been laid down by good U.S.A. authorities that in the case of their Warble fly, lineata, the attack is commenced by the quite embryo maggots making their way by the mouth to the gullet and there hanging on until it pleases them to make their way onward, by piercing through the coat of the œsophagus and onward through the tissues of the beast until they arrive after their long and curious journey beneath the ribs, whence they proceed to work beneath the hide like ours. The matter seems to me very curious, but I was not called on to enter into discussion, excepting giving my reasons why I felt wholly certain, and considered the evidence in our hands proved, that our H. bovis did not start on its travels in this way.”

1, Male; 2, curved extremity of abdomen of female; 3, maggot; 4, mouth hooks; 5, spiracles at extremity of tail of maggot—all greatly magnified (after Brauer).

FIG. 10.—HORSE BOT FLY, OR HORSE BEE, GASTROPHILUS EQUI, FAB.

On May 14, 1900, she addressed another correspondent thus:—

“I have another formal application from the authorities of S. Australia;—(this time from our friend Mr. Molineux) relative to Horse botfly—and very especially to make them sure regarding the precise differences between Bot, Warble, and Gad flies. I have explained that Gad flies, Tabanidæ, may be distinguished by being blood suckers, and by their maggots feeding in the ground, and that ‘Bot’ or ‘Warble’ are only two convertible names for Œstridæ, but that ‘Bot’ is usually most specially applied to internal feeding maggots, and Warble to those that live in the hide, notably in Warbles. But such difficulty continues to arise from haphazard use of the words, I have suggested that if possible the scientific name—(Gastrophilus equi) should be insisted on. An entomologist (?) had absolutely called this attack or kind of attack inside a horse that of ‘Gad fly’! But as the attack has been well studied in the Department of Agriculture, Cape Town, I have suggested they should communicate with the Government entomologist, Mr. C. Lownsbury. For their practical needs, I have suggested clearing the Horse botfly, G. equi, eggs from the hair by dressing, and very especially that they should take care all droppings (in which the maggots pass from the horse, and where, or in the ground beneath, they go through their changes to the perfect state) should be so treated as to kill the maggots. It may possibly turn out that the Gastrophilus may be some other species than equi—I have not had specimens. When you are about to devote so much attention to Colonial Agriculture [in the “Garton” course of Colonial and Indian Lectures], I wished very much to tell you what I am about, lest I should, as this is sent me officially, go on other lines than you approve.”]

June 9, 1891.[^[57]]

Dear Mr. Bailey,—I have now much pleasure in asking permission once again to place in your hands a cheque for £5 5s., to be used exactly as you may judge fit, in purchase of prizes for the encouragement of serviceable study of habits and means of prevention of ravages of injurious insects by your scholars. I have real pleasure in doing this because I believe the importance of those who are in any way connected with agriculture being serviceably acquainted with the causes of loss to crop or stock, and means whereby this may be lessened, cannot be over-estimated. I offer my hearty congratulations to yourself and your pupils on the satisfactory work achieved in my own department of agricultural entomology in one more year.

I do not like to offer views of my own on these matters now that what is called Technical Instruction is receiving such widespread attention throughout the country. Still I should like, for the encouragement of any of your boys who may think themselves behind in the simply scientific race, to observe that instructions given (let them be conveyed in what terms the teacher will) must be founded to start with, on facts, trustworthily observed and trustworthily recorded; and the pupil who leaves your school with the knowledge of the appearance of the common crop pests, as the wireworm, the turnip flea beetle, the warble fly maggot for instance, and, as I am well aware is the case with many of your boys, adds to this a practical knowledge of how to lessen their powers of mischief, goes forth holding in his mind what will save him many a pound in the future, and be a benefit wherever he goes. It is a foundation on which as much as he pleases may be built, but the solidly learnt field knowledge will always be serviceable.

June 5, 1893.

I thank you very much for your kind letter. If I were nearer it would be a great pleasure to me to be present on your prize day, when I might have the gratification of making personal acquaintance with many of those whom I know by name as taking much interest in this important school as well as yourself, whom I should much like to meet; and also our “Aldersey boys,” whom I have known and worked with, or they with me, for so many years.

It is a very great pleasure to me that they are continuing their attention, under your skilled help and guidance, to observation of farm pests, and their work stands first as a proof of what can be done in getting rid of one insect pest.

When careful search only produces twenty warble grubs, in a district[^[58]] where a few years ago they were counted by hundreds, to my thinking we—that is, the boys, you and I—may fairly be proud of a thoroughly useful work. If I might venture on a kind of little moral reflection I should say that I should like the little prizes which I have so much pleasure in offering, to remind them sometimes of how much can be done, in many other things also, by even moderate attention given at the right time and under the guidance of sound knowledge. I trust they will continue their field work. With the increase of area under cultivation or occupied by stock so may their insect pests be expected to increase, and on sound knowledge of what really happens, and what at a paying rate can be brought to our aid, our hope rests of coping with the farmer’s enemies. What I can do to help them by advice, or by reply to inquiries, will be gladly at their service. Whilst I congratulate those who have won my little tokens of goodwill, and beg to offer the same for the next prize day, I must say to all that in the information and benefit they have laid up in their working and observations they have each gained a prize far better than anything I can offer them.

May 29, 1894.

It is with most sincere pleasure that I hear from you once again this year of the good success of the Aldersey boys in their studies and of their steadiness in work. The methods by which serviceable instruction on this subject, namely, Agricultural Entomology, can be given is often a matter of difficulty and doubt, and I certainly think that the plan you mention to me is so good, and meets the points of combining practical knowledge with so much scientific information as is requisite, so well that I shall gladly draw the attention of those who apply to me for suggestions on these subjects to its serviceableness. You mention arranging the observations of the boys who take up the study of crop and fruit pests on a system which, though so simply worked, really forms an excellently complete course. You say that one week the boys bring samples of infestation injurious to fruit; in a second week attacks on garden vegetables; in another week on field crops; in another on timber; in another living examples of the subjects figured in the insect diagrams which my sister and I have had the pleasure of contributing to your school collections, and in yet another week you receive notes of serviceable means of prevention and remedies. This plan appears to me so sound and good that I hope I may be forgiven for intruding a few minutes on your time in greatly desiring to draw the attention of the influential visitors who will be present at your meeting to how excellently this plan meets many difficulties. A boy so taught knows his facts.

June 2, 1895.

Many thanks for your letter received yesterday morning, which is very interesting indeed to me, and which I hope to reply to very soon, but now I am replying to your note accompanying the caterpillars from the Peckforton Hills, though not so fully as I could wish, for disasters befell the letter, and it arrived by special messenger from the Post Office, with the announcement that the things had got loose, and were creeping all about! Any way but little remained to judge by, so I report on what was visible. Most of the caterpillars were loopers (fig. [30]), and the largest proportion of these, though differing so much in colour, appeared to me to be the Cheimatobia brumata. As you know there may be every variety of shade in these Winter moth caterpillars, from pale green down to smoky brown or almost black. Another kind of which I only find two specimens (small and very small, respectively), look as if when grown they would be the Mottled Umber moth, which is so injurious this year. There are just single specimens of a few other non-looper kinds, but at this present time all the kinds come under only one method of (feasible) treatment, and I am afraid this (even if feasible) would be much too costly on such a great scale. Washing with Paris-green or London-purple, or with kerosene emulsion, would be the right thing, or our British form of the emulsion, made by Messrs. Morris, Little and Son, Doncaster, and sold, I believe, at a very low price (consequent on the large demand for it), under the trade name of “antipest.” This only needs diluting. But when we come to dealing with great areas like the Peckforton Woods, I believe that the only really practicable way of, in some degree, lessening the evil, and counteracting its effects, is throwing water from some large engine. If a fire engine and a supply of water were available this might do a great deal of good.

I was consulted by the late Sir Harry Verney about “an ancestral oak” at Clayden, which appeared nearly cleared of leafage, and I advised playing the house fire engine on it—and the plan succeeded. The moisture falling around the tree pushed on the second leafage and (conjecturally) saved the tree. But with woods it is most difficult to manage application. I am afraid I am only able to say what would be best, if it could be done.

For the future it is a grave consideration, and consultation is very desirable, as to what means could reasonably and safely be employed to destroy the caterpillar in the ground. They will probably be very soon leaving the trees, and burying themselves just below the surface, and will most likely reappear, in moth form, and ascend the trees, beginning in the early winter, and thus eggs will be laid to start next year’s attack. I do not know whether the ground growths would permit of anything like paring being done under the trees. The best way would be “sticky banding” in October. At the Toddington fruit grounds one year 120,000 trees were sticky banded, but still this is work on an enormous scale. These are the main points to work on, and I should be very much pleased to enter on any of them more in detail, but just now I am writing as soon as I can (before going to church), as with Sunday and Bank Holiday posts I am afraid this letter will not, at the earliest, reach you until Tuesday morning, so please excuse such hastily written lines.

SAMPLE OF THE SCRAP NOTES LEFT BY MISS ORMEROD RELATING TO THE GREAT WATER BEETLE RECOGNISED BY THE PRINCE OF WALES, NOW KING EDWARD VII., AT ST. ALBANS’ SHOW.

It was a great pleasure to me to
notice the appreciative interest that
their Royal Highnesses now our
gracious King & Queen took in the
habits of injurious insects. Her
Majesty’s discriminating observation
made me permit myself to say
that she should have been an Entomologist.
And our King recognised
at a glance the great water
beetles the Dytiscus marginalis
as a kind which he well
knew as injurious to fish spawn.

April 6, 1896.

Now I am working on my Exhibit of Economic Entomology for the Bath and West of England Society Show at St. Albans. I think you will perhaps like to look at the enclosed set of labels for the cases.[^[59]] There are only a few lines to be fixed outside each. In the catalogue there is a fuller account, with prevention and remedy. Is it not a triumph of condensation to get a little life history and prevention and remedy of Wireworm into about half a dozen lines? But really there is enough if people would mind it. I try to give injured material wherever I can, and there are upwards of sixty infestations. Georgiana helps me with twenty diagrams—more beautiful than any of her previous ones—and the Council, who are very kind, have awarded us all the privileges of stewards and members of Council for the Show, so that we may have every convenience of transit there.

It gave me great pleasure to be appointed External Examiner in Agricultural Entomology at Edinburgh University—for besides enjoying such a great compliment it will help my work.

May 30, 1896.

N.B. Confidential. I want to tell you how kind and nice the Prince and Princess were at the Show. T.R.H. shook hands when they arrived, quite heartily, and when I had explained my own and my sister’s exhibit I thought I was to retire, but I found I was to attend round the other exhibits in the building, so I walked on by the Princess—just think, at the head of the Royal party, before the Prince and all of them! When we had gone round the Prince said, “Now, I think we must be going,” and he shook hands again, and the Princess, who was a little ahead, turned back and shook hands also. I was told by one of the officials that the Prince expressed himself afterwards as much interested, and my informant had told the Prince that I was doing work in this country which was done in other countries by the State. H.R.H. was so interested about the warbles that he called up Lord Clarendon to look at the great photo of the warbled red-deer’s hide too, and we had quite a chat together.

FIG. 11.—WATER BEETLE, DYTISCUS MARGINALIS, LINN.

June 15, 1899.

I had great pleasure in receiving your very kind letter, and I thought a great deal of you, and your flock, on the prize day. But now I am troubling you (the idea occurred too late to be of use at the time), to ask whether you would at all care to have (say) ten copies of my “Manual of Injurious Insects,” to give just as you may think fit as an encouragement to the boys—or perhaps a present here or there to one who might be leaving school and taking up farming. I should like it very much. You have it yourself and (I think?) one for the school library, and Mr. D. E. Byrd must have his father’s copy, but if you cared to have some copies it would really give me very great pleasure. Though fruit-insect prevention has made great advances in the last few years, this is not a special Cheshire interest, the agricultural observations are very correct still.

Mr. D. E. Byrd has kindly given me some very good information about Cheese-fly maggot attack, just precisely what I was wishing for, and also something of the principle of prevention. Mr. Ward [Organising Secretary of the Cheshire County Council] was kind enough to procure me some good information from Miss Forster [of the Cheshire Dairy School], and I hope to form a good paper by and by. All I really want now in this matter are a few of the “hopping” maggots, which most likely will turn up soon. Curiously enough, just at the time, I had an application from a bacon-curing Co. and I think we have on both sides benefited.

1, Fly; 2, pupa; 3, pupa-case; 4, maggot—all magnified, with lines showing natural length; 5, tail extremity, still more magnified, showing spiracles, tracheæ, and caudal tubercles.
FIG. 12.—CHEESE AND BACON FLY, PIOPHILA CASEI, LINN.

August 5, 1899.

I now, with many thanks for the clearness with which you have been good enough to note precisely the form of the presentation labels, enclose twelve, only altering by adding to the slips for the three boys, the prefix of “Mr.” I am sure they will like it. I fancy I see them surreptitiously turning to the donatory slip, to enjoy their rise! Very many thanks to you indeed. I hope it may give the recipients pleasure, but I am very sure you give great pleasure to myself by allowing my little remembrance to these kind helpers.

I am sure you will be interested to know that the Meat Traders Associations—at the Royal Lancashire Show—are distributing thousands of my Warble leaflets, with free leave to write up to London for more.

March 2, 1900.

Many thanks to you for your very kind letter. Indeed it is a trouble to me that I am not able to write oftener, but nobody knows better than yourself (who are so burdened with work for the good of others) how hard work can be, and if I quite overwork I am ill, so I am afraid to do all I wish.

Thank you for your kind congratulations. I take it as a very great honour for the University of Edinburgh to give me a Doctor of Laws Degree, &c., &c., &c. I am a little anxious about making such a very public appearance, but I dare say it will not be so alarming when it comes to the point. But I do not wish to go out of my own quiet lines, and I do not certainly wish to be called “Doctor.” Would not the right thing be for me to just put LL.D. after my name where desirable?

Torrington House, St. Albans,

April 26, 1901.

My Dear Mr. Bailey,—I have postponed replying to your kind letter partly because I have had a long exhausting illness, and partly because I am sure that you will regret the subject of my letter, as I do myself. Still I think I ought to tell you that I am purposing quite to discontinue my regular entomological work. You would notice what I said about the Annual Reports, but the attention to insect inquiries and (almost worse) the requests for co-operation in philanthropic literary schemes had become a burthen so very injurious to me that I was warned both by my doctor and literary colleagues that without rest the consequences might be very serious. All last year my health was failing, and (though this is temporary) an attack of influenza early in March, followed by what are called “effects,” has caused me great suffering.

But it is in reference to our long, kindly colleagueship that I am writing to you. Natural history is on a very different footing now from what it was in 1884, when with your good help our good lads started the investigations regarding Warble, which have proved to the whole world the possibility of checking this wasteful attack, and I may add they have carried the work on with their own steady, patient, long-continued energy. To this I must add my great appreciation of their useful work in real serviceable Economic Entomology, and the kindliness and heartiness of their work.

But now yourself, your school and your scholars have a world-wide name, and as you will fully appreciate that to continue, however much I may wish it, publicly attached to any one philanthropic economic work throws me open still to whole hosts of applications, I am sure you will understand my wish to withdraw. You have I think my subscription for your next great June day, and after that I, with much regret, purpose to discontinue it. I look back on many years’ kindly communication from you, but if you could have any idea of the labour which has been thrown on me from other quarters, I am sure you would think I am right. I earnestly and sincerely beg you to believe me with feelings of the highest esteem and friendship and every good wish,

Yours sincerely,

Eleanor A. Ormerod.

P.S.—Please to excuse handwriting, as I am on my sofa.

CHAPTER XV
LETTERS TO MR. D. D. GIBB

Great Tortoiseshell Butterfly—The Forest Fly—Numerous other fly-pests and fly-parasites—A few Moths.

The subjoined letters to Mr. Gibb are unique in that they deal with a wider range of subjects than any of Miss Ormerod’s letters to other British observers. She recognised and appreciated her correspondent’s accuracy of observation, and gratefully acknowledged the assistance she received through the numerous specimens he so promptly collected for her when in need.

To D. D. Gibb, Esq., Assembly Manor Farm, Lymington.[^[60]]

Torrington House, St. Albans,

June 26, 1894.

Dear Sir,—I am very much obliged to you for kindly sparing time to let me have your careful observations received this morning, together with the specimens of the Great Tortoiseshell butterfly, Vanessa polychloros, infestation. I have been very carefully noting, measuring and counting, so as to secure details, and presently I think with your own observations these will form a very serviceably interesting paper. That patch of eggshells contained over three hundred eggs, as near as I could count by taking numbers in length and breadth. Your two caterpillars had been over hasty in their arrangements, and changed to chrysalis on the journey, and consequently made not a good business of it, but one of those you sent me previously, having better surroundings had done its work thoroughly well, and is a very beautiful specimen which I hope will develop. I propose to have a good figure engraved of the butterfly, chrysalis and caterpillar.

All your other notes I have also read with much interest, especially those on turnip management, and your remarks about “warble,” and in due time I shall be much obliged by being allowed to use these in my next Annual Report.

Caterpillar and chrysalis, natural size; branched spine from
caterpillar, magnified.
FIG. 13.—GREAT TORTOISE-SHELL BUTTERFLY, VANESSA POLYCHLOROS, L.

July 27, 1894.

I am very much pleased to hear that you have hatched two of the Large Tortoiseshell butterflies from your specimens. This is very interesting as completing your previous observation, and I am particularly glad of this note of date of development for I am afraid that the only really good chrysalis which I secured from your larvæ does not seem likely to develop. However, it gave me an opportunity of seeing the beautiful colours and the six bright mother-of-pearl-like spots on the back. Many thanks for kindly offering me a specimen, but I should not like to take it—for it is of special interest with you to illustrate this rare attack, and also it is very difficult to ensure safety in transmission. Many thanks all the same, and also for your Hessian fly specimens received a short time ago, and for the further notes now. I am sorry not to have acknowledged them and the information in the letter accompanying them sooner, but I had a deal of work, and some temporary difficulty from breaking a blood-vessel in one eye. However I am thankful to say that is all right again.

I have no doubt you are right about the weather making a most important amount of difference in extent of injury both from Hessian fly and Diamond-back attack. If it had been hot I am afraid Plutella cruciferarum (Diamond-back moth) would have done a deal of mischief. The little Charlock weevil, Ceuthorhyncus contractus (see my seventeenth, 1890, report), has been doing a great deal of mischief to young turnips at some places on the east side of the country.

In usual position, and also with wings expanded—magnified; also natural size.
FIG. 14.—CHARLOCK WEEVIL, CEUTHORHYNCUS CONTRACTUS.

July 30, 1894.

The V. polychloros specimen came to hand little, if at all, injured by its journey, and in beautiful order for figuring. I am very glad to have it, for besides proving the caterpillars to be of the “great tortoiseshell,” I had the opportunity of seeing the row of long bristles or stout hairs about a third along the lower part of the front edge (the costa) of the fore-wings. This row of hairs is the structural difference between this “great tortoiseshell,” and the “small tortoiseshell” (which is without them), but otherwise the two species are so much alike that there used to be doubts whether they were not merely varieties until this point was noticed by a Dutch entomologist, Mr. Snellen. I shall be glad to refer to this point, for it is important and was observed after our chief manuals of Lepidoptera were published.

On referring to your letter accompanying the Hessian fly puparia, “flax-seeds,” in which you notice some of them being within the stalks, I remembered I had not precisely replied to this part, so I do it now. I think this position, though not characteristic, is not very uncommon, and is caused by a weakness of the stem. I have from time to time found the stem cracked longitudinally and the “flax-seed” partly slipped into the cavity.

Natural size and magnified.

1, Anchor-process of larva of Cecidomyia destructor; 2, of Cecidomyia trilici—magnified; “flax-seeds,” or puparia, in different stages of development, natural size and magnified.
FIG 15.—HESSIAN FLY, CECIDOMYIA DESTRUCTOR.

August 22, 1894.

I have to-day had a request from Dr. Ritzema Bos for some specimens of Hessian fly puparia in situ or otherwise. If you could do it without inconvenience, could you oblige me with some “flax-seeds” if you come on them at threshing time; and you will be good enough to let me have also a few pieces of barley or wheat stem just three or four inches long with the flax seed still adhering.

I hope you are having good harvest weather, but indeed this is the first really good bright summer’s day we have had for a long time, and to my eye the wheat round here has a grey look instead of the bright colour.

FIG. 16.—YOUNG WHEAT, WITH HESSIAN FLY MAGGOT AT “a.”
(After Prof. Webster.)

1, Straw bent over;
2, showing “flax-seeds.”
HESSIAN FLY ATTACK ON BARLEY.

Nos. 1-6 and 11 and 12, Gout fly, grub, and pupa—natural size and magnified; with infested stem; 7, 8, 9 and 10, parasitic ichneumon flies, natural size and magnified.
FIG. 17.—GOUT FLY, RIBBON-FOOTED CORN FLY, CHLOROPS TÆNIOPUS, MEIGEN.[^[61]]

August 28, 1894.

Your packet of infested straw came safely to hand this morning and I am very much obliged to you for kindly taking all this trouble. I have repacked the Hessian fly straws, winding a thread over the place of deposit of the puparia on the barley straw for fear they should get from under the sheathing leaf and be lost. I am sure Dr. Ritzema Bos will be very grateful for the help, and also for its coming so promptly.

Thank you also for the Chlorops (Gout fly) specimens; they were particularly acceptable just now, for, if all is well, Professor Riley means to look in early next week before he returns to the U.S.A., and I think he would like to see them.

April 26, 1895.

If I am not troublesome I should be very greatly obliged if you would tell me anything as to the methods commonly used for keeping off attacks of the Forest fly, Hippobosca equina, which is such a special pest in the New Forest to horses not used to it. I mean the thick made fly of which I enclose a figure (18), natural size and magnified, which deposits an egg-like puparium or chrysalis case in the hair of the horses, from which case the fly presently comes out. I believe you will know exactly the infestation I refer to, and any information which you may be good enough to give me, as to how to prevent it coming at horses and settling on them, I know would be quite sound and reliable. I am receiving so much application for information about the habits, &c., &c., that I feel sure my best plan will be to issue a leaflet as soon as possible with figure included at the heading. I have, I think I may say, far more in the way of description and nature of the fly than can be needed, but it would help me very much indeed to have a recipe for any application which was really known to answer in keeping the attack off riding horses. I am sure you would allow me to add this to my leaflet, acknowledged to you. I make no doubt quantities of things, especially of the nature of soap or soft soap (not caustic) or lard, and a little paraffin or sulphur, would with careful attention keep the flies from congregating permanently, but the thing in hand is to prevent them coming at the horses and causing dismal downfalls! I have heard lately of a plan of rubbing horses with paraffin—very efficacious, I should expect, but not the thing to benefit the clothes of the riders!

1 and 2, natural size and magnified from life; 3, pupa removed from puparium (after Réaumur); puparium, natural size and magnified, before complete coloration.
FIG. 18.—FOREST FLY, HIPPOBOSCA EQUINA.

Wednesday night, May 1, 1895.

I am exceedingly obliged to you for your most helpful letter and the live specimen, which I learnt a great deal from, before we re-captured it, and stopped its activity with some benzine. It slipped out of my fingers somehow, out of your careful packing, and kept flying at my light woollen shawl, varied by taking a promenade (which I was very conscious of) on the top of my head. It struck me as suggestive that it selected me (not my sister or our housekeeper) for this purpose, because I never use any kind of pomatum. I like my hair as smooth as can be, so the creature did not establish itself, but judging by feeling, it had much pleasure in its survey. I noticed the set of the wings, and perhaps I can get a figure.

When the flies are more plentiful, so that it would not give you too much trouble to secure some, I certainly should like two or three very much, but please do not let me intrude too much on your good nature and time. I will write again presently to say how I am getting on with the leaflet, but I did not like to delay thanking you heartily longer than I could.

Fly, with wings expanded; also viewed sideways. Larva and pupa, after De Geer.
FIG. 19.—GREAT OX GADFLY, TABANUS BOVINUS, LINN.

May 10, 1895.

I am very greatly obliged to you for all the information in your letter, and also for the four live and hearty flies. These have been very valuable to me, and I cannot help thinking I have discovered a point not previously observed in the structure of the feet which may prove of importance practically. However it may have been known, so I have written to-day to our great English authority, Mr. Meade, to ask him what he thinks about it and will write you again. I fancy that your specimen’s being so fresh allowed me to make out the point. Still I may be wrong.

P.S.—I was told yesterday that a worse trouble in the forest than the Forest fly is the “Great Gadfly” the Tabanus bovinus. Do you think this is so? This fly is such a very large creature indeed, see figure (19) of it with wings laid at rest and expanded. I should have expected to hear of it before now.

Magnified (after Railliet).
(a) CLEG, OR SMALL RAIN BREEZE FLY.
(b) AUTUMNAL BREEZE FLY.
(c) SMALL BLINDING BREEZE FLY.
FIG. 20.—BREEZE FLIES: (a) HÆMATOPOTA PLUVIALIS. (b) TABANUS AUTUMNALIS. (c) CHRYSOPS CÆCUTIENS.

May 20, 1895.

I received the first copies of my Forest Fly leaflet late on Saturday and now enclose you a few with great pleasure. Please tell me if more would be acceptable, as you know how gladly I would send them, and you have helped me most importantly. I have only had a moderate impression struck in order that I might be able to alter or add as seemed desirable.

I thought a deal of what I could manage, as the flies came at me and I could watch them, but I did not see my way at all to making a more useful figure than that by Dr. Taschenberg, which tells little. Mine is after the figure by Professor Westwood drawn for the plates of “Insecta Britannica—Diptera,” and these are regular standard reference plates.

July 1, 1895.

We have really captured some of the Hippobosca equina in North Wales. The account will be in next number of the “Veterinary Record.” I have identified them with quite absolute certainty, but I suppose I must not forestall the “Veterinary Record,” as it sent me the flies.

Red maggot attack on a stem of barley; and a saddle, magnified.
FIG. 21.—SADDLE FLY, ? CECIDOMYIA (DIPLOSIS) EQUESTRIS.

July 11 or 12, 1895.

I am very much obliged for your further consignment of the Tabanidæ (Horse gadflies), and especially for the liberal supply of the Great gadfly (fig. [19]). What a very grand fellow he is, and how very painful the attack must be. I have to-day written to Mr. R. H. Meade about this great variety of Gadflies which you are letting me have, and offering to send him duplicates.

Many thanks also for first, and as yet only, note of presence of Hessian fly this season. About these curious markings on the side of the straw—are they not very like those of the maggots, “red maggots,” of the Diplosis equestris, the Cecidomyia or Great midge, mentioned in my thirteenth Report, at p. 30? I think you have this report, and if you chanced to have leisure to compare some specimens with my sketch, you would see what you thought. The workings do not seem to me as regular, but yet there is a strong resemblance.

I am working up the Gadflies as well as time allows, and through courtesy of Mr. Janson have had a loan of a volume published in 1842 of a serial called “Isis” so as to be able to study the very special paper in it by Zeller, which is the authority on some of the important points, and which cannot now be bought by itself. I thought this was a kind help, for the whole book is very costly.

July 31, 1895.

I have a promise from Professor Mik, who is a special authority on flies, that when he returns to Vienna he will let me have such duplicates of the Tabanidæ as he has, which will be a great help. I have had an artist down from London who has made most beautiful drawings for engraving of the fly’s foot (plates [XXIII]. [XXIV].), but I greatly want some dissections made of it, and I have only this morning heard where I could get this minute work done. Would you mind the trouble of once again letting me have two or three Forest flies? I should be very much obliged, for though I keep the specimens most carefully that you let me have, some quite fresh would answer much better for dissection.

It is very curious that until Mr. Goodall (a highly accomplished veterinary surgeon) noticed the long bristle attached to the H. equina foot, no one except that wonderful observer De Geer appears to have noticed it, or what is perhaps still more astonishing, repeated De Geer’s observation and figure.

PLATE XXIII.
Horace Knight ad nat del West. Newman lith. Foot of Forest Fly (Hippobosca equina, Linn.) Side view greatly magnified

PLATE XXIV.
Horace Knight ad nat. del. West, Newman lith. Foot of Forest Fly (Hippobosca equina, Linn.) Seen from above greatly magnified.

August 13, 1895.

I am much obliged by your letter of the 8th inst. with observations of the effect of temperature and weather on presence of Forest fly, and now again this morning, and very much, for the supply of Forest flies, which were alive I should say by the grumbling in the corn-stem, until I chloroformed them.

Your “black ants” appear to me to be Formica fuliginosa, of which it is stated in Frederick Smith’s British Museum Catalogue of British Fossorial Hymenoptera [burrowing four-winged insects], p. 11, that “this species is at once recognised by its jet-black colour; its usual habitat is the vicinity of a decaying tree or old post.” I only twice met with this kind in my father’s woods, each time, curiously enough, one of my brothers who had a great fondness for ornithology saw the Hoopoe. As this rare bird is stated to have a fondness for this special kind of ant I conjectured its presence was caused by the fuliginosa being present. Their workings were wonderfully destructive in the felled stump which they chose for headquarters. I certainly think you need no advice from me on the head of dealing with them, but it just occurred to me that, if they come in a definite line still, and you could not run them up to their starting point, it might answer to put a couple of half-decayed stumps across their line of march. Might they not adopt the suggested new settlement?

I am getting on with the Forest fly and lately I have been studying the claws. I have only just discovered that along the lower part of the large-curved claw is a saw-toothed edge, and to this the slanting grooves which I had previously noticed run down one furrow to each notch so as to give an enormous power of holding and tearing. I think the thumb claw is also to some degree furnished both with saw- and file-like markings (fig. [22]).

P.S. I can only see the saw and file mark with a good side light, when the claw is examined in natural state, not in balsam.

Much magnified.
FIG. 22.—FOOT OF FOREST FLY, HIPPOBOSCA EQUINA, SHOWING DOUBLE CLAWS, CENTRAL PROCESS, AND LONG PRICKLY BRISTLE; ALSO PORTION OF SIDE OF CLAW OF HIPPOBOSCA MACULATA, SHOWING PARALLEL GROOVES AND SAW-EDGE.

1, Leg and base of wing; 2, base of wing; 3, abortive wing; 5, female fly, with base of wings—all much magnified; 4, puparium, much magnified, and line showing natural length.
FIG. 23.—DEER FOREST FLY (FEMALE), LIPOPTERA CERVI, VON SIEBOLD AND LOEW.

June 20, 18096.

I was very glad to have your note of first capture of Hippobosca (Forest fly) on May 6th. I wonder whether on your Red-Deer (or Roe Deer, if you have them) you find the Deer Forest fly, the Lipoptena cervi. I am having a deal of communication about it as having been observed as a very noticeable infestation on Deer in one locality in the North of Scotland. I believe it is troublesome to people moving in the parts it frequents, but the odd thing about it is, that whilst the females are considered (or conjectured, for it is not quite certain) to be always wingless, yet the male flies are developed with wings and drop them, something like ants, on settling on a host animal. It would be very interesting if you found any of these; they come very near the so-called “Sheep tick” in their nature, only neither male nor female of the “Sheep Forest flies” is ever winged. It is also very curious that from some unaccountable confusion the generic name has gone wrong; it seems obvious it should be Lipoptera, “without wings,” but—it is supposed by some error in printing—Lipoptena, which has no meaning connected with the fly, has got substituted. I think it would be well presently to try to get this put right.

With wings thrown off; also still retaining wings; and wing—all
much magnified. Line shows natural length.
FIG. 24.—DEER FOREST FLY (MALE), LIPOPTENA CERVI, VON SIEBOLD AND LOEW.

Fly, magnified, with line showing natural length; puparium, magnified (showing incrustation), also natural size.
FIG. 25.—SHEEP SPIDER FLY, “KED,” OR “KADE,” MELOPHAGUS OVINUS, LINN.

August 29, 1895.

I am writing a few lines to mention that Mr. Meade has verified my identification of the New Forest Tabanidæ for me as being all correct, with one exception. He thinks the glaucopus is more like cognatus, but Brauer of Vienna says the latter is only probably a variety of the former, so this is no great matter. Mr. Meade is not only an eminently skilled dipterist himself, but he also possesses a collection of the Tabanidæ (our British kinds) named for him by Dr. Brauer, the great continental authority. So now we stand on a very firm footing (thanks to the trouble which you and Mr. Moens were good enough to take in supplying me with fresh specimens) as to the species of these bloodsucking pests which you have in the Forest. Would you tell Mr. Moens about this when you see him, with my compliments and thanks? I think you meet sometimes. I am longing to hear something of the military experiences.

1 and 2, young and full-grown larvæ; 3 and 4, larvæ magnified; 5, female beetle flying; 6, male beetle, slightly magnified.
FIG. 26.—BEET CARRION BEETLE, SILPHA OPACA, LINN.

October 8, 1895.

I am very much obliged to you for your letter received this morning, and (as you kindly allow me) I will just say what I should particularly like, but please believe me I should be very sorry to be really troublesome. First, about the Hessian fly straw. If you came on some that had been infested this would answer excellently. I have got some “flax-seeds” and I could slip some in. But really the “elbowed” straw (bent over) into an angle (fig. [16]) is what I want to show. I have excellent Gout specimens. One thing I should particularly like is a little bit of Mangold-leaf (say two or three inches square) showing Mangold maggot blister. I could dry this in blotting paper (like my pea- bean- and clover-leaf injuries from Sitones) and with a good supply of Mangold fly and pupæ which I have got, I think this would be very nice. I have good grubs of Carrion Beet beetle, which would be difficult to get, and I think plenty of the beetle (or at hand), but, for the mangold, if I could get them, I should very much like some of the Spotted or Black millepedes which were such pests earlier in the year. I am afraid though it is too late now. The only other thing which I am very much wishing for is a good specimen of apple twig, injured by American blight. A bit from six to nine inches long, which I could split down, would suit me very nicely.

I may mention that I am preparing an exhibit for the Bath and West of England Agricultural Society Show next May, but I am collecting beforehand to be sure. This afternoon I have arranged a nice case to show Bean and Pea seed and Leaf weevil injuries. [See Appendix [C] for list of cases and contents.]

October 22, 1895.

I am greatly obliged to you for the very acceptable parcel of specimens, which arrived in excellent order this morning. Indeed I feel very much indebted to you, for I know the trouble it takes to collect and pack in this careful way. The Hessian fly wheat was particularly acceptable as I had just two or three old straws, but this to freshen them up (with the insect and figures) makes a beautiful exhibit. The mangold leaves are also a great help; and nothing could be more characteristic than the American blight. I have not fully examined the contents of the bottles, but I see some nice Julus guttatus (Snake millepedes) and also a few of the long, thin, yellow, electrical centipedes, which I shall hope will keep their colour nicely in spirits. Indeed it is a very welcome contribution.

I have been ill with rather a bad quinsy, followed by something going wrong with my mouth and tongue, but I have nearly recovered now, and as I was directed to keep indoors, I have been getting on with the cases.

Besides the more customary crop and other attacks, I thought such things as liver-flukes (in spirit) and a good number of the little “water snails,” Limnæa truncatula, (such tiny shells!), which is their host in the early stage, with figures of the intermediate conditions, would be of useful interest; also a couple of bottles with contents of sparrows’ crops, showing the great amount of corn they eat, as well as a number of locusts in the condition in which they are imported in lucerne from Buenos Aires.

1, Julus londinensis; 3, Julus guttatus (pulchellus, Leach); 4, Julus
terrestris; 5, horn; 7, Polydesmus complanatus—all magnified; and
2 and 6, natural size.
FIG. 27—CENTIPEDES AND A MILLEPEDE.

Infested apple spray, natural size; wingless viviparous female and young clothed with cottony fibres above; and small egg-bearing female beneath the spray; pupa with little cottony growth—all magnified.
FIG. 28.—AMERICAN BLIGHT, WOOLLY APHIS, SCHIZONEURA LANIGERA, HAUSM.

November 26, 1895.

This sort of brickdust-like deposit is, I think, eggs. I had a quantity of it sent me about six weeks ago by a fruit salesman and auctioneer who had got 10,000 apple trees infested. It agrees in measurement and colour, &c., with the general description given by Mr. Frazer Crawford (of Adelaide) of the eggs of the Red spider, Bryobia ? speciosa, (fig. [52]) found on apple in South Australia, but I do not think we can be quite certain of its nature until the contents hatch. About ten days ago I thought that I found fungi developing in the patches, so I sent a good supply to Professor M. C. Potter (Botanical Professor of Durham College of Science), for I was sure whatever he would say would be trustworthy. He wrote me that there was fungus amongst the red spheres. He did not believe that they were fungoid; but thought, like me, that they were eggs. Certainly you are right in considering them not American blight, although on one of the twigs you have sent me there is a swelled cankered piece that looks very much, to general observation, like that attack. I wish I could give you a plain straightforward answer, but the above is the best I can tell you at present. Mr. Nixon, whose name you will remember in my yearly reports connected with Red spider, says that he knows this “red deposit” well and does not think it does harm, but I should think it would be but prudent to have some soft soap mixture or antipest at hand, against hot sunshine in late winter days.

Many thanks for your good wishes, which I heartily reciprocate, to you and to your young people. I cannot say I have been well. However, I am much better, but we are anxious, for my only remaining brother (who is nearly eighty) had a stroke of palsy last year, and on Sunday he had a second, but he is not suffering, which is a great comfort.

Moth; caterpillars hanging by their threads, slightly larger than life; rolled oak-leaf.
FIG. 29.—OAK-LEAF ROLLER MOTH, TORTRIX VIRIDANA.

July 3, 1896.

I thank you very much for taking the trouble to send me this good supply of Tabanidæ, and still more especially for the Forest flies. I thought these were all dead, but whilst I was opening the bit of straw in which you pack them so cleverly, they began to tear out headlong—luckily I thought of catching the whole affair together in my closed hand, and then, pouring some chloroform in between my fingers, I got them all safe.

I am very much interested about this poor young woman’s death from poisoning by a fly or insect attack.[^[62]] I wish it had been possible to secure the pest, it would be so really useful to make out whether the evil was from the nature of the bite or sting, or whether from ill health or other cause the sufferer was unusually susceptible.

(a) Male; and wingless females. (b) Male; and wingless female; caterpillar.
FIG. 30.—LOOPER CATERPILLARS, (a) WINTER MOTH, CHEIMATOBIA BRUMATA, LINN.; (b) MOTTLED UMBER MOTH, HYBERNIA DEFOLIARIA, LINN.

December 14, 1896.

I am troubling you with a few lines to ask whether you would kindly tell me if the caterpillars which did so very much harm to the oak leafage in your neighbourhood in May, were mostly “loopers”—or the dull, dirty green, or leaden-coloured larvæ of the Tortrix viridana (Oak-leaf roller): you just noted the very great amount of attack to me, in your letter of the 12th of May. I conjecture they would be loopers (? Winter or Mottled Umber moth), for you note that “the moths appeared unusually early, and as soon as the bud began to open, the little caterpillars were upon them,” and I think you would be referring to the early appearance last autumn of the Winter moth. But a note from you would be very valuable. I am wanting to make a really good paper on “Leafage Caterpillars”—people seem not to understand that though the remedies we know of can be used at a paying rate on orchard trees that we can get at, yet, for a mile of avenue “ancestral timber!” or for woods with their trees touching, and no passage for machines, the expense of treatment could not be met.

August 5, 1897.

I am greatly obliged to you for your very interesting and valuable observations, and for the accompanying specimens of corn attacks. What a collection to find in one field! I do not remember having had wheat attacked by Chlorops before, though it is subject to the attack, and it is years since I have had the Sawfly attack. In one stem the grub had spun itself a beautiful case just within the lowest part of the stem, and being kept steady in the transparent covering, it gave me an excellent opportunity of examining it.

I am very glad also of your definite observation of presence of Diamond-back moth. I should not much wonder if we saw more of it next year, for I have just had a very few specimens sent from widely distant localities.

1, 2, Corn sawfly, magnified, and line showing natural length; 3, infested stem; 4, 5, maggot, natural size and magnified; 6, parasite fly, Pachymerus calcitrator, magnified, and 7, line showing natural size.
FIG. 31.—CORN SAWFLY, CEPHUS PYGMÆUS, CURTIS.

August 7, 1899.

I am very much obliged to you for your letter of the 3rd with notes of Hessian fly (fig. [15]),and Corn sawfly presence. I have examined the specimens, and it seems to me that those of the Hessian fly attack close to the root are of the same nature as some I have had before. I think your notes would be interesting for my next Annual Report. I was very much pleased to notice some time back, that in an official U.S.A. report, attention was markedly drawn to the great importance of destroying puparia of Hessian fly as a means of keeping attacks in check. My name was given as having upheld the plan in England. I am truly glad that the States people have taken this improved view of preventive measures.

The weather has been quite distressingly hot here, with often a glare of sunshine on this exposed south-west slope that was very painful, and with the heat quantities of the Cabbage white butterflies came out. I got my gardener to syringe the brassicaceous plants with “antipest” as an experiment, and I certainly think that afterwards there was not nearly as large a proportion of the butterflies on the cabbage as in the adjacent flower garden.

Believe me,

Yours very truly,

Eleanor A. Ormerod.

D. D. Gibb, Esq., Barton, Marlborough.

CHAPTER XVI
LETTERS TO MR. GRIMSHAW, MR. WISE, AND MR. TEGETMEIER

The Red-bearded Bot fly—Deer and Ox Warble flies—Caddis flies—Black Currant mites—Crusade against the House Sparrow—Miss Ormerod’s pamphlet and Mr. Tegetmeier’s book on the Sparrow.

The grouping of the letters to three correspondents, so differently interested in Entomology and other branches of Biology, was more a matter of dates than of any scientific relationship in the subject matter. (1) Mr. Grimshaw, the well-known authority on Scottish Diptera, was also the first investigator to show that the so-called “frosted” condition of heather was caused by a beetle larva; (2) Mr. Wise was one of Miss Ormerod’s most interested correspondents in questions relating to fruit-growing and market-gardening; and (3) Mr. Tegetmeier was her colleague through the trying days of the Sparrow controversy, in which Miss Ormerod was subjected to bitter personal attacks by her opponents. He was always ready to lend assistance in relation to questions dealing with birds and the four-footed animals.

To Percy H. Grimshaw, Esq., F.E.S., &c., Museum of Science and Art, Edinburgh.

Torrington House, St. Albans,

August 14, 1895.

Dear Sir,—I write at once to thank you very much for the copy of your paper on the Cephenomyia rufibarbis (Red-bearded botfly), in the “Annals of S. Nat. Hist.” Will this be the attack figured (in its effect on the deer) in Dr. Brauer’s spirited frontispiece to his “Œstridæ”?[^[63]]

[In the last few days I have had sent a nice specimen of the Throat Deer botfly, C. rufibarbis, which I alluded to in my nineteenth Report. It is a very handsome fly, more than half an inch long, and of very broad make (three-eighths across the abdomen), thickly clothed with very dark hair (but much either mixed with or tipped with orange), and on each side of the thorax a good-sized pale patch, and beneath the chin the red beard from which it takes its name. I scarcely think it would occur in the New Forest, but, if it did, it would be quite a rare prize.][^[64]]

Have you (if I may venture to ask) extended your researches to the Hypoderma (Warble fly), of our British deer? It would be usefully interesting, I think, if we could work this up. I am doing what I can, with help from some of the head-keepers, &c., and when deer-stalking is going on I am promised a warbled red-deer’s hide for examination.

Rather larger than life; line showing natural length.
FIG. 32.—RED-BEARDED BOTFLY, CEPHENOMYIA RUFIBARBIS, MEIG., BRAUER, AND SCHINER.

August 17, 1895.

I had much pleasure in receiving your letter this morning, and only wish I had a duplicate of the Hypoderma bovis (Ox warble fly, fig. [5]), to spare—I would most gladly offer it, but now I have only one. I never had many, and with my best endeavours I cannot get people to rear them. I quite hope to have a hide of a red-deer presently, and I think one might make out the larva of the H. diana (Deer warble fly), at least, by reference to fig. 6, tab. viii.—what do you think?

May I ask you to do me the pleasure of accepting the enclosed copy of the “Œstridæ,” lately come rather curiously to my hands. It was sent through a mistake instead of the separate impression of Dr. Brauer’s “Tabanidæ,” and as I knew how difficult it was to procure (especially with the plates), I kept it, feeling sure it would be useful to some friend. I have a copy which I have worked with for years, so I hope that you will not hesitate to give me the pleasure of making this copy as useful as I am sure it will be in your hands. I wish it were in better order. I see that beneath the frontispiece of this copy is a reference to p. 186 in the “Biologie von Cephenomyia, &c.,” but I suppose my frontispiece is a “proof before letters,” for there is no reference or description. The two are the same edition.

January 9, 1897.

My rufibarbis was sent to me by Mr. Dugald Campbell from Strathconan Forest, Muir of Ord, Ross-shire. I received it on June 8th, then quite fresh—and such a beauty! With its long thick coat it almost might be called furry, and the “glance” on the hairs was lovely. It was rather darker in some parts (that is, ran to rather more foxy red on the centre of the upper fore part of the abdomen), than is noted by some observers, so that it was very richly coloured, and its red beard was very handsome. I have had a figure taken of it, with great care, and if when you see it (for of course I hope you will accept a copy of my next Annual Report, on publication), you think you would like to borrow it any time for one of your papers, I should be only happy to lend it you.

Yours sincerely,

Eleanor A. Ormerod.

To Charles D. Wise, Esq., Estate Office, Toddington, Winchcombe, Gloucestershire.

Torrington House, St. Albans,

April 16, 1896.

Dear Mr. Wise,—If it would not give you too much trouble I should be very glad of some information about the case of Caddis worms attacking water-cresses. You will know these grubs quite well as the creatures that go about in shallow ponds or ditches with a case formed round them. Sometimes this is of very little shells, but at home the commonest kind was made of little morsels of rush or stick, with little leaves webbed up with it.

There is a very large trade in water-cresses from the little river here, but there are such quantities of trout in it, that probably these keep the Caddis worms in moderate limits, and I only now and then see their flies, the so-called “Water moths” in the summer. Mr. Richard Coe, Weston Farm, Guildford, has kindly sent me some excellent specimens of Caddis worms and cases, which I am very glad to have. The chief natural helpers against over-presence of Caddis worms appear to be fish of various kinds, but the increase of birds which naturally feed on fish—herons, &c.,—destroys the balance of nature, and Caddis worms increase.

[Miss Ormerod, quoting Mr. Coe in her Report for 1896, says (p. [156]):—

“Whenever we find a bed of cresses attacked, we clear away all the plants, drain off the water, and leave the bed perfectly dry for two or three weeks in the autumn, previous to the winter planting. If afterwards we find traces of the worm, we wait until the plants are well established, then we increase the volume of water and swim the bed, and pass the backs of wooden rakes over the tops of the plants very thoroughly. This process brings the bulk of the worms to the surface, and they are let off down-stream with the surplus water.”

Water moth, magnified, and lines showing natural size (after Westwood); Caddis worm “cases” of Limnephilus flavicornis, magnified.
FIG. 33.—CADDIS WORMS, LARVÆ OF CADDIS FLY OR WATER MOTH, MORMONIA NIGROMACULATA.

To Dr. Fletcher she also wrote as follows:—

“Did I tell you about the Caddis worm attack on water-cresses? So much harm was being done that the unlucky grower was in much trouble, and on running the matter up it appeared that formerly there were numbers of trout in the water, but lately the landlord’s wife had a fancy to encourage herons, and so came the curious sequence. The herons cleared off the insect-loving trout, so the vegetable-eating insects got ahead, and the watercress grower could not pay the rent of his half acre of cresses. I suggested that as the herons were encouraged by the lady, perhaps she, if applied to, might to some degree make good the damages!”]

March 5, 1897.

Dear Mr. Wise,—You asked my views about moles at Strawberry roots. I should say it would be quite worth while to spare them as you are doing, and see what comes of it. If they take the Otiorhynchus grub (of Orchard and Hop weevils) this would meet a difficulty which we hardly know how to fight at present, and if the moles took these grubs one might hope that they would take other underground kinds, which are kitchen garden pests, almost unconquerable by other remedial means. I should doubt, however, whether they would be of much service against Winter moth chrysalides (fig. [30]). Very likely I am not right, but the mole seems to me to prefer more open ground and a larger scope of operations.

April 8, 1897.

So far as I know the only treatment for Black Currant Gall mite, Phytoptus ribis (fig. [65]), which has been in a measure successful, is that reported by Mr. J. Biggs, of Laxton, East Yorkshire, in my seventeenth Annual Report, p. 93. There, if you will turn to it, you will see we have treatment to clear the pest from all localities, whether straying on the twigs or on the ground; or in the buds, this by breaking them off. Mr. Biggs observed, writing on the 20th of April, 1892: “You will, I am sure, be interested in knowing that I have, to a certain extent, prevented the Phytoptus utterly ruining my black currant trees. As you suggested in a letter of last March, we syringed the bushes twice with the solution of Paris-green, which I procured from Messrs. Blundell, and gave the soil all under the bushes a good coating of caustic lime; I also gave the bushes another dressing of the Paris-green. Just when the buds appeared this spring I had a boy gathering all the little knobs off the trees. The result has proved as satisfactory as I could expect, considering the condition of the trees last year, and I have every prospect of securing a good half crop. Our neighbour’s trees in this village are utterly ruined, scarcely a leaf to be seen, and the trees completely covered with the affected knobs.”

But with regard to the life history of the pest, I believe it breeds entirely in the infested buds, and I believe also breeds, i.e., lays eggs, there at any time during the winter. I know that the nearly allied nut-Phytoptus does, for I have seen them. Outside the buds, so far as I know, the life is wholly spent in sheltering in crannies or straying about, on the stems, or on the ground. What we want, appears to me to be, to clear the mite by syringings from the stems when the buds (of which we have now the galled growth) are first beginning to form. But I do not see how we could do this, for we should ruin the fruit. My only hope for real prevention where black-currants are grown on this large scale, is in an alteration of the method of cultivation. As it stands now, the mites can convey themselves, or be carried by wind-borne leaves, or may creep from one bush to another on the ground, but if there could be a mixing of some field crop in strips with the black-currants, I believe it would do a deal preventively. If the ground between the rows were occupied by some crop that the Phytopti would not pass, it could not fail to lessen their presence. Even strips of strawberries or of gooseberries would be beneficial. I wonder whether kainite would be a good remedial application? It might kill all the mites that are about, but it is quite plain to me that, as nothing that has been tried for so many years answers thoroughly, we are on the wrong lines and need a new plan. I wish you would, at your leisure, tell me what you think of mixing crops, and if you could let me have just a few little bits of galled twigs for figuring, I should be very much obliged. I wish I could help better about the matter, but so far the attack appears to have fairly baffled us all.

April 13, 1897.

I am very much obliged for these remarkably fine specimens of Currant galls, which reached me safely this morning. About the life history of the Phytopti, I do not think that anything more is recorded than what both you and I know. But as we know well that the mites are in the galls (such as you send me), it seems to me that what we have got to act upon is their condition (or locality, rather) in the time between their leaving these galls and when they are starting new attack in the embryo buds. I wish I could tell you more, but I do not see how to get at the point of locality, excepting by watching shoots with a hand magnifier. I really am quite at a loss as to what can be done.

April 19, 1897.

I wrote out to Vienna to Professor Dr. A. Nalepa, who is the great authority on the Phytoptidæ, and he is much interested in hearing about this great spread of attack, but is not able to give us better advice, as to practical remedies, than what we are already trying. (See also p. 248.)

He says very truly, that looking at the winter quarters of the mite pests being most especially in the buds, such measures as:—

(1) Breaking off and destroying the infested buds.[^[65]] (2) Cutting off the infested shoots just above the ground, and so getting new shoots. (3) Only using uninfested pieces for propagation—could not, he thinks, fail to be of service, if carried out carefully. I quite agree with Dr. Nalepa so far as that, without these measures, infestation would be worse than it is. In a small amount of growth (such as bushes in a private garden), I can speak from my own personal experience of having sometimes satisfactorily checked the spread of these or similar causes of injury by employing dressings. But it is a very different matter where blackcurrant bushes are grown by acres together; and I greatly doubt whether, even if consideration of cost were put aside, it would be within possibility to get this wood (or grove) of bushes, so examined and so expurgated of evil, as not to leave centres for spread.)

It always strikes me as a very curious circumstance that (so far as I am aware) the black currant is not affected by this Phytoptus on the Continent, or at least in the large part of it in which the attacks are noted by Kaltenbach or Taschenberg. Do you think it can be that the black currant is there of a somewhat different kind which repels Phytoptus attack, just as some kinds of American vines are not as subject as others to Phylloxera? It occurs to me that it may be well worth while to import some hundreds of plants and plant them, of course on what is considered clean ground, and see what comes of it. I should like your views after you have well thought the matter over. I cannot expect the expense of an experiment of mine to be borne by any Company, but I should much like it trustworthily tried, and if you could give me some guidance as to where to apply on the Continent, and cost (a rough estimate), I might be able to get the plants, and with your permission send a good consignment to yourself.

April 27, 1897.

I have to-day heard from Dr. Ritzema Bos about the Phytoptus ribis, and he tells me that in Holland he knows many localities where this infestation is a scourge to fruit-growers, but it is always the black currant which is attacked. They do not have it there in the red currant, Ribes rubrum. He says that he is not acquainted with any better remedies than those mentioned in my letter, but that he considers it an excellent idea to seek for varieties or families of black-currants, Ribes nigrum, which may be “Phytoptus proof.” He does not himself know positively whether there are districts in Holland not attacked by the Phytoptus, and whether in attacked districts there may be varieties that do not suffer. Therefore he is going to ask for information on this head from horticulturists and fruit-growers, and will write me again. I think it is very kind of him to take so much trouble to help us, and from his position I expect he will easily obtain whatever information is to be had, and I will be sure to let you know. It is very curious about the red currant being attacked in some parts of the Continent and not in others.

November 30, 1897.

I have this afternoon heard from Professor J. Jablonowski, Assistant at the State Entomological Station, Budapest, that he “sends now the promised black-currants.” I expect these will be supposed “mite-proof” plants, as he says that he hopes they will be serviceable for the proposed experiment—but he does not explain; only that they have been given to him by his friend, the Director of the Horticultural Institute, Desiderius Angyal (I do not know what prefix I should write). When the plants arrive I propose to divide them (if you please) between yourself and Mr. John Speir—it would be exceedingly interesting if there really should turn out to be a mite-proof black currant. But meanwhile Professor Jablonowski would very much like to have a specimen of the mite galls, for he has never seen them. If it would not be too much trouble, I should be very greatly obliged if you would be kind enough to let me have two or three bits of twigs with galls, if any are showing enough now to be noticeable, and I would send them on.

December 4, 1897.

Many thanks for the supply of galls, which I shall duly send to the Professor, and I earnestly hope that he will not infest Hungary with them! The consignment came to hand from him yesterday evening, but it is in the form of shoots as cuttings, so I now send you about half in a registered letter. If the pieces root properly I should think it would be best to plant them amongst the infested currants—as they are so few it would not be much trouble—and there is just a chance that they may be mite-proof. I do not myself (much as I regret it) think that there is any safety in washes and that sort of treatment, but as I write the idea comes into my mind whether, as with us, the Ribes rubrum (red currant) seems mite-proof—anything could be done by grafting black on red. Would they graft? or is my idea quite chimerical? The black currant shoots are var. “bang-up,” which suggests England as their original country.

I do not know whether you have to do with importing apple fruit, but I see from Dr. Fletcher’s (Canadian) Entomological Report that there is a newly observed fruit maggot in, I think (without special reference), the District of Columbia.

December 17, 1897.

I cannot be sure of your bulb attack without developing the fly, but I should conjecture that the mischief was most likely caused by the Narcissus fly. This is now known as the Merodon narcissi, Fab., but from the varieties in colour to which it is subject, I believe it has been known under all the following specific names: ephippium, transversalis, nobilis, constans, ferrugineus, flavicans, and equestris.

It is a fair-sized two-winged fly, and appears to be (in grub state) a severe plague to Narcissus and Daffodil growers in Holland, &c., especially in bulbs imported from the South of Europe.

In Verrall’s list of British Diptera I only find one species of Merodon named and that is equestris, which on the principle mentioned on the preceding page, might be synonymous with all the other (?) species. The grubs feed in Narcissus and Daffodil bulbs and turn to chrysalides in the ground, but I do not find anywhere that there is any known remedial measure. It seems to me that the only way if a bed were much infested would be literally to trench it, and so turn down the chrysalides. You do not mention whether your bulbs are home grown. If they are imported, could not you suggest to your “consigner” that unless he sent you bulbs without maggots in them, you purposed applying elsewhere?

May 12, 1898.

Excepting one specimen your caterpillars are not yet nearly full grown! If you will turn to “Lappet moth” in my Annual Reports for 1893 and 1894, you will find “the brutes” figured—perhaps get a hint where they may have come from.

It was about this attack amongst others that I gave so much annoyance to “Entomologists” by recommending that, notwithstanding their beauty and rarity, it would be highly desirable to make them yet more rare!

Male and female; and caterpillar; also apple twig with leaves eaten away—all from life.
FIG. 34.—LAPPET MOTH, GASTROPACHA QUERCIFOLIA, LINN.

December 5, 1900.

Do you happen to have seen the Woburn Report containing, amongst a good deal of information, an account of results of experiments re Black currant mite? I would with pleasure lend you my copy, if you please; there is a little in it, as to their views about hydrocyanic acid—the very great difficulties of applying it to broadscale treatment—and a politely expressed hope that further experiment may lead to useful results. The experiment of moving cut down plants, even if steeped in methylated spirit and water, has not succeeded. Mine had a charming little crop of mite galls on those only moved to my clean ground, and even the steeped plants were not quite without them. In this case four of the twelve plants died, the others were sickly, and all of the two dozen sent me flowered profusely but did not produce one currant!

Yours very truly,

Eleanor A. Ormerod.

To W. B. Tegetmeier, Esq., F.Z.S., M.B.O.U.[^[66]]

Torrington House, St. Albans,

July 3, 1897.

Dear Mr. Tegetmeier,—I am greatly obliged by what you tell me about your intentions as to publishing a book on “The House Sparrow,” Passer domesticus. My idea is this—that for popular use (farmers and gardeners)—the evidence of what the food of the house sparrow really is, needs to be put plainly before them by means of records of trustworthy investigations of the contents of their crops. For this I have been taking the returns of Mr. Gurney, and some of Colonel Russell, who used to help me; an abstract of the U.S.A. Board of Agricultural Investigations, &c., &c.; also from my own Annual Reports, some lists, and observations of birds which are named as destroying insects—this to show that we do not wholly rely on Passer domesticus! With other material I propose to make a sort of 8 or 12 page “leaflet” or small pamphlet, and send it out gratuitously. I believe it would have an enormous circulation, and would not interfere with your much more valuable standard book. But I am exceedingly desirous to act completely in conjunction with you. To me it would be a very great advantage. I quite reckon on being violently attacked, but it did me no harm before to be threatened to be shot at, also hanged in effigy, and other little attentions. Still it was disagreeable!

FIG. C.—HOUSE SPARROW, PASSER DOMESTICUS.

[Miss Ormerod’s case against the House Sparrow or avian rat is briefly given in the following summary, appended to the aforementioned leaflet, of which nearly 36,000 were printed and issued to applicants:—

“We find, in addition to what all concerned know too well already of the direct and obvious losses from sparrow marauding, that there is evidence of the injurious extent to which they drive off other birds, as the swallows and martins, which are much more helpful on account of their being wholly insectivorous; also that, so far from the sparrow’s food consisting wholly of insects at any time of the year, even in the young sparrows only half has been found to be composed of insects; and of the food of the adults, it was found from examination that in a large proportion of instances no insects at all were present, and of these many were of kinds that are helpful to us or harmless. It is well on record that there are many kinds of birds which help us greatly by devouring insects, and that where sparrows have systematically been destroyed for a long course of years other birds have fared better for their absence. Attention should also be drawn to the enormous powers of increase of this bird, which under not only protection, but to some extent absolute fostering, raises its numbers so disproportionately as to destroy the natural balance.

“Here as yet we have no movement beyond our own attempts to preserve ourselves, so far as we legally may, from Sparrow devastations; but in the United States of America (of the evidence of which I have given a part) the Association of the American Ornithologists gave their collective recommendation that all existing laws protecting the sparrow should be repealed, and bounties offered for its destruction; and the law protecting the sparrow has been repealed in Massachusetts and Michigan. Dr. Hart Merriam, the Ornithologist of the U.S.A. Board of Agriculture, also officially recommended immediate repeal of all laws affording protection to the English sparrow, and enactment of laws making it penal to shelter or harbour it; and Professor C. V. Riley, Entomologist to the Department, similarly conveyed his views officially as to it being a destructive bird, worthless as an insect killer. In Canada, on October 6, 1888, at the Annual Meeting of the Entomological Society of Ontario, Mr. J. Fletcher, Entomologist of the Experimental Farms of the Department, strongly advocated the destruction of the sparrow; and in reply the Hon. C. W. Drury, Minister of Agriculture (who attended the meeting as head of the Agricultural Department of Ontario), stated ‘that this destructive bird was no longer under the protection of the Act of Parliament respecting insectivorous birds, and that every one was at liberty to aid in reducing its numbers.’ Reasoning on the same grounds as to procedure in this country, we believe that similar action is, without any reasonable cause for doubt, called for here. The amount of the national loss, by reason of ravaged crops and serviceable birds driven away, may be estimated, without fear of exaggeration, at from one to two millions a year. Much of their own protection lies in the hands of farmers themselves; and sparrow clubs, well worked, and always bearing in mind that it is only this one bird that is earnestly recommended to their attention, would probably lessen the load to a bearable amount; and we believe that subscriptions, whether local or from those who know the desirableness of aiding in the work of endeavouring to save the bread of the people from these feathered robbers, would be money wisely and worthily spent.”

FIG. D.—TREE SPARROW, PASSER MONTANUS

In his little book, “The House Sparrow,”[^[67]] Mr. Tegetmeier writes:—“There is no species with which Passer domesticus is likely to be confounded except the Tree sparrow, P. montanus (the only other species indigenous to this country) which is less numerous and which is readily distinguished by its smaller size, being only 5½ instead of 6 inches in length, and by its having black patches in the middle of the white feathers on each side on the neck, and two distinct bands of white across the wing in place of one.” “The so-called Hedge-sparrow or Dunnock, Accentor modularis, is wrongly named. It is a purely insect-eating bird, and neither in its structure, habits nor food is it closely related to the House sparrow. It does not occur in large numbers, and is highly beneficial as an insect destroyer.”]

July 10, 1897.

Dear Mr. Tegetmeier,—Your letter received this morning is a very great pleasure to me—in fact, a great relief to my mind, for I was truly sorry to feel I might be trespassing on far more authoritative work. I should like to shorten my work if I could, but when we meet, I hope you will set me right as to condensing and all other matters. If we could rout P. domesticus it would be a national benefit. Much looking forward to our meeting on Tuesday.

August 4, 1897.

I think “House Sparrow” shapes up nicely altogether, and I have this morning received a letter from Dr. M. E. Oustalet, President of the “Comité Ornithologique permanent,” at Paris, to say that he has not been able to find any indication of destruction of sparrows having taken place by order of Government in the districts that I inquired about.

August 16, 1897.

Application for our leaflet is very satisfactory. The Staffordshire County Council has taken up distribution, and the farmers and parish authorities are again encouraged to begin sparrow clubs. I have experienced tremendous denunciations of my own brutality from the Rev. J. E. Walker. I enclose the second, as he purposes to relieve his mind further in the “Animal’s Friend.” Please not to return it. I returned his book with my compliments and thanks for sight of the same, and requested that should he desire to make any further remarks relative to the leaflet that he would not address them to me, but to you as my colleague in the work.

August 21, 1897.

In very little more than a week a new impression was needed to keep up to demand—and we are making way well with this second 5,000. Many of the applications are from centres—and great satisfaction is often expressed at the information being made available. The Agent-General for New Zealand asked for a supply, and Mr. Morley, Lord Spencer’s agent, is taking up the matter well; and as Lord Spencer appears to steadily set his face against sparrows, I hope that when he comes home we shall get some support there. A fair proportion of clergymen want copies for distribution to parishioners, or for sparrow clubs, which is satisfactory—and amongst all the great mass of applications there have not, I think, been more than five or six at all upholding P. domesticus, and these have been mostly quite trivial observations.

Mr. Morley was in a difficulty about how to keep the birds for counting, as in warm weather they got unpleasant. I suggested preserving their heads in salt and water—if I remember rightly this was how they managed the difficulty in South Australia. Altogether I think we are doing well—there are a good many inquiries as to the best methods of destroying the bird—but I always say that you will deal with this in your work. The good folks have not attacked me again personally by letter.

I should have liked to write just a short note to the “Field” to mention how well the matter has been taken up, but I did not feel sure whether you would wish me to do it? Would you think well of just mentioning the large demand yourself? On several days the applications ran to above a hundred letters. I am keeping the letters, for in some there is very practical observation as to the great injury done by sparrows—especially attacking corn on allotments.

August 22, 1897.

I am trying—if the thing be possible—to rout people out of the time-honoured old holes that they creep into—as the emigration of the sparrows—also the Maine and Auxerre story. These, I think, we have managed.

[The following is an extract from the “House Sparrow” pamphlet:—

“For many years mention has been made, by those who consider sparrow preservation desirable, of great disasters following on some not clearly detailed methods of extermination, or expulsion of the sparrow in the countries of Hungary and Baden, and also in the territory of Prussia; and, nearer our own time, in Maine, and near Auxerre in France. With regard to the three first named, a record will be found in our own ‘Times’ for August 21, 1861, p. 7.

“This gives a translation from the French paper, the ‘Moniteur,’ of a report on four petitions relative to preservation of small birds which had been presented to the French Corps Législatif. The report contains much information, but in respect to the emigrations of the sparrow because the bird was aware of the plots that were being laid against its safety, the statements cannot be said to carry any weight. The following extract is inserted, as it is important to agriculturists to have a correct copy of the baseless statements they are sometimes called on to believe. The passage is as follows:—

“‘Now, if the facts mentioned in the petitions are exact, according to the opinion of many this bird ought to stand much higher than he is reputed. In fact, it is stated that a price having been set upon his head in Hungary and Baden, the intelligent proscrit left those countries; but it was soon discovered that he alone could manfully contend against the cockroaches and the thousand winged insects of the lowlands, and the very men who offered a price for his destruction offered a still higher price to introduce him again into the country.’ ... ‘Frederick the Great had also declared war against the sparrows, which did not respect his favourite fruit the cherry. Naturally the sparrows could not pretend to resist the conqueror of Austria, and they emigrated; but in two years not only were there no more cherries, but scarcely any other sort of fruit—the caterpillars ate them all up; and the great victor on so many fields of battle was happy to sign peace at the cost of a few cherries with the reconciliated sparrows,’

“With regard to the destruction and consequent results stated to have occurred in Maine and near Auxerre, at present our very best endeavours have failed to find that the statement of this having occurred rests on any authoritative basis; and the only definite notice of the subject which we have found is, that in the neighbourhood of Auxerre there was an injudicious destruction of small birds generally, not only of Passer domesticus.” See ‘The House Sparrow at Home and Abroad,’ by Thomas G. Gentry, p. 26, Philadelphia, 1878.”]

August 22, 1897.

Dear Mr. Tegetmeier,—But there is a third story—though I name this with more reverence than they always do—the New Testament allusions translated in our version, the “sparrow.” I find in a copy of the “Ecclesiastical Slavonic” Scripture which I have here (the authorised edition of the Russian Greek Church) that the word is bird; in the ordinary modern Russian it is sparrow. Unfortunately I do not understand Greek—but this could easily be looked up in the Greek Testament. I am trying to find a scholar who knows what the respective words for bird and sparrow are in Aramaic, which I believe was the dialect of Palestine in the time of our Lord. Mr. Rassam, the explorer, can, I believe, talk a number of these Eastern dialects, but he always told me that he did not enter on them grammatically or technically.

September 3, 1897.

I see by a local paper that Miss Carrington’s leaflet, “Spare the Sparrow,” is out, and is procurable from the Hon. Sec. of the Humanitarian League, 53, Chancery Lane, London, W.C., price 1d. I have now written to the Hon. Sec., enclosing 8d., and requesting him to send six copies to myself, and two to yourself. This leaflet, I think, will be spirity. There are only a few lines quoted, but if the rest is so discourteous and inaccurate it will not be of much value.

Amongst applicants for my leaflet, the Duchess of Somerset and also Lady Alwyne Compton have asked for copies, which I am glad of. If it were “fashionable” not to protect sparrows this would go far with some people. I am longing to see the reply leaflet. I expect I am roundly abused, but I think it is rather strong to head something or other in the “Animal’s Friend” for September “God Save the Sparrow.” I expect we shall very likely have Maine and Auxerre, and Frederick the Great, and the cherries and cockroaches and the whole story resuscitated!

September 11, 1897.

The Secretary of the Yorkshire Union of Agricultural Associations asked for some leaflets, and with his consent I have sent him down 2,000 copies, which gives one for each member of the Agricultural Clubs or Chambers in the Yorkshire Union, and the matter is to be brought before the next quarterly meeting, with the view, the Secretary says, of seeing about asking the Board of Agriculture to remove P. domesticus from the list of protected birds. Mr. Crawford wrote me acknowledgment of receipt of the leaflets I sent by his desire to the Board of Agriculture, and said that next week, when the Secretary returns, they will be laid before the Board. I wonder what they will do? Daily applications are running from seventeen or eighteen to thirty—and some very good. To-day I have one from Smyrna and one from Stavanger, Norway.

September 19, 1897.

The applications are going on so well that I have had to order a fourth 5,000 of the leaflets to be printed as soon as can be managed, and of these over 2,000 are bespoken. A few days ago 3,000 were wanted for a Scotch centre, the Agent-General for New South Wales will send out 500, and other distributions are floating about; I think this is not bad.

October 16, 1897.

As you will see by the enclosed, I am now working on the twenty-first thousand. I have only about fifty copies left, and Mr. Newman has sent out some of the twenty-second thousand, so I think that we are doing well. One of the largest amounts asked for lately has been 1,000 for the Lancashire County Council, and also a little while ago Lady Aberdeen wrote for a small supply from the Government House, Canada.

October 27, 1897.

I hope you will be pleased to hear that I have brought our sparrow work under the notice of Mr. [now Sir Ernest] Clarke, Secretary, Royal Agricultural Society—I hope in a way to advance our work. I sent him a couple of the twenty-second thousand, with a sort of report letter, giving some points. Mr. Clarke has replied very courteously that he is much obliged for my interesting letter, which he will lay before the Society’s Zoological Committee. Also that, as he is occasionally asked for the leaflet, it might “save me (E. A. O.) unnecessary correspondence” if he were able to send copies to inquirers. I am delighted to follow up this suggestion—for practically it is the Royal Agricultural Society distributing for us, and thus giving their marked approval. I wonder what will come of the Zoological Committee’s consideration. As the President of the Society has such an exceedingly bad opinion of the sparrow, I hope we may get some good colleagueship. I am perpetually asked how to destroy sparrows, but I refer the inquirers to you. I am longing to hear when your book will come out—surely it will have a good circulation. I am well advanced now in the twenty-second thousand, and the information is well spread, for we have a splendid notice—much more than a column—in the “Madras Mail,” and I have had two applications from scientific U.S.A. centres.

I am still dispensing knowledge about the evil ways of P. domesticus so steadily that I have had to order a sixth impression.

The store of letters grew to such a size that a week or two ago I sent them (excepting about seventy which were to some degree private) in a great parcel to Mr. Janson, and I have arranged with him that this great mass, perhaps of 1,500 or 1,600 letters, should be sorted out into those that are merely applications for leaflets and those which contain any information.

The overwork and worry was too much for me, joined to my bad fall, and I was very far indeed from well for some time with gout and exhausting troubles, but I am better, and regaining strength.

September 14, 1898.

I most truly think it a great distinction that my name should be associated [on the title-page of “The House Sparrow”] with that of an Ornithologist of such world-wide reputation as yourself, and as it is your wish I very heartily agree. The only alteration I would suggest is that the word “Miss” should be removed. I do not like the word if it is not quite needed; and would it not be well to add a reference to my being an authorised agricultural worker? It may protect me from some “mendacities,” and, a better reason, show that we are attentive to all three of the points (Ornithology, Entomology, and Agriculture) on which anti-passerine observation rests.

I like your frontispiece (figs. C and D, kindly lent by Mr. Tegetmeier) very much. It is very pretty as well as very useful. When your book appears I shall like to get some copies to send to some of my own friends, British and extra-British.

April 15, 1899.

It was a great pleasure to me to see “The House Sparrow” yesterday, followed this morning by your kind and cordial letter. I like your book exceedingly; it appears to me to be exactly what is needed. Chapter IV. [Diminishing the Sparrow Plague] meets the want which is greatly felt, and your voice being raised against poisoning will do good. I propose to send samples to the Agents-General of South Australia and New Zealand, where the “Avian Rats” are special pests; also to Mr. McKinnon, for the benefit of the Republic of Uruguay.

I think one or two would be well placed in the hands of the Department of Agriculture, U.S.A. I suppose that in an obviously much-needed matter like this it is hopeless to expect our Board of Agriculture to do anything. But I have, besides the above, several centres of work which I hope to make use of.

I do hope that your book will have the success that it deserves, and be of infinite benefit. I like it thoroughly—its pretty dress, the good figures and readable type on strong paper; it is a National gift, in your good and authoritative working up of the subject, and I feel myself honoured to be associated with you in the good work and the pummelling, which I dare say we shall get more of!

With my very kind regards and remembrances, believe me,

Yours very sincerely,

Eleanor A. Ormerod.

CHAPTER XVII
LETTERS TO MR. MARTIN, MR. GEORGE, MR. CONNOLD AND MESSRS. COLEMAN AND SONS

Elm-bark and Ash-bark beetles—Roman remains—Bladder plums—The Silver Y-moth.

A number of interesting and important fresh subjects are here concisely treated in letters addressed to various British inquirers. These are merely characteristic samples of a vast amount of correspondence for which space could not be found.

To the Rev. John Martin, Charley Hall, Loughborough.

Torrington House, St. Albans,

April 2, 1897.

Dear Sir,—From your description of the elm-bark attack, I should certainly think that the maggots were those of the Elm-bark beetle, the destructor. If you do not feel certain after this hint as to the nature of the infestation, and will send me a little piece of bark, I will with pleasure examine it and report to you. This infestation does not injure the timber of the tree. The burrowings are mostly between the bark and the wood, though necessarily there are a number of borings through the bark, caused by the entrance and exit of the beetles. It would be desirable to fell the trees, and peel off the bark and burn it. The timber would be quite good (so far as this matter is concerned) but if the bark is left, the maggots will in due course develop to beetles and fly off to continue mischief elsewhere. Further I would suggest that you should direct your wood-superintendents to examine whether other elms show shot-like holes in their bark—the sign of the presence of the infestation. From your mention of the locality of the trees being rather damp, I should conjecture that the trees were not in absolutely perfect health, and this is the state of things the beetle prefers for its attack. Injured boughs, or moderately recently-fallen boughs, or, above all, felled elm trunks in which there is still sap, but not flow enough to stifle the little maggots, are the very headquarters of infestation, and it is quite worth while to have such felled trunks peeled and the bark destroyed, or they will be the nurseries of great mischief. If you will supply me with more detail I will with great pleasure give my very best attention.

Beetle, much magnified (from “Forest Protection,” by W. R. Fisher); workings in elm bark—from life.
FIG. 35.—ELM-BARK BEETLE, SCOLYTUS DESTRUCTOR, OLIV.

April 5, 1897.

The little larvæ came safely yesterday and the specimens of bark this morning. Necessarily when the attack has been going on so long the burrows intersect each other so very much that they cease to show the typical patterning or tracks, but I do not see any reason at all to doubt that this is attack of the very great elm-pest, the Elm-bark beetle. With regard to its infestation of other trees besides elm, I have no knowledge of its ever attacking either oak or ash, but on careful search I find that one German writer records it as “sometimes” attacking the ash. I greatly doubt this having been observed in our country. Our ashes have, however, a bark beetle which tunnels much in the same manner between the bark and wood, and of which the presence may similarly be known by the shot-like holes in the bark. But you would distinguish the difference in pattern of gallery at a glance on raising the bark. As in the figure given, the mother-gallery is branched. This Ash-bark beetle, Hylesinus fraxini, does not do very much harm, for it chiefly attacks felled trunks, or sometimes sickly or damaged trunks and boughs. It is not to be compared in its ravages with the Scolytus, well-named destructor. I am not aware of this ever attacking oak.

Workings, showing forked “mother gallery,” with larval galleries from the sides.
FIG. 36.—TUNNELS OF THE ASH-BARK BEETLE, HYLESINUS FRAXINI, FAB.

April 12, 1899.

You have certainly two kinds of bark attack present in the specimens which you send me, but without the beetles I am not able to say at all what species may have been doing the mischief. I can say quite certainly that I do not see any signs of the presence of the Hylesinus fraxini (Ash-bark beetle), but I have never, so far as I remember, seen the very long, narrow borings, hardly wider than a thread of silk, which are a good deal represented on the inner surface of one of your pieces of bark.

There are two or three grubs in fairly good condition which I have gently inserted into a burrow in the little bit of bark and have put carefully aside in the little box, and if these develop, we shall then know what we have to deal with. Perhaps you may be able to secure some beetles in a month or two; it would be of interest to make out the attack with certainty.

November 7, 1899.

I have very carefully examined your beetle and find that it is Hylesinus crenatus, sometimes known as the “Large Ash-bark beetle” to distinguish it from Hylesinus fraxini, the “Ash-bark” or the “Small Ash-bark beetle.” The life history of each kind is stated to be the same, and I think, if I remember rightly, that some time ago, perhaps a year or so, in the course of our occasional correspondence, we have gone into the history of the fraxini, but if not I should have pleasure in either looking up the account in my Manual and sending the pages to you or condensing the points.

There appears to me to be this difference in method of larval proceedings: that whereas in the case of fraxini the parent galleries are formed somewhat in the shape of a T, with a short stem and long arms to the top, and the larval galleries placed at right angles to the others (fig. [36]), so far as I understand this form is not followed by crenatus fig. [38]).

The beetle obviously pierces the bark, for the orifice is visible; and in or under the bark there are the mother-galleries, but I do not find the larval galleries feathering as it were from these, and the figure before me gives the idea of the body of larvæ having by their united attack cleared a flat space from which they have continued their solitary tunnels. Perhaps in cutting up your trees you may come on some of these markings. It is said that there are two generations in the year, of which the flight time of one is in April and of the other in October. This species frequents oak as well as ash, which is an important consideration, and I find it noted as frequenting old trees. These are the main points which I see about the history. I should think that if you find the trees which you have felled much infested, it would be a good thing to strip the bark off and burn it.

1, Beetle, with wings expanded, and one wing-case drawn only in outline, to show lower part of wing; 2, beetle as usually seen—magnified; 3, smaller and paler variety; also lines showing natural length.
FIG. 37.—GREATER ASH-BARK BEETLE, HYLESINUS CRENATUS, FAB.

FIG. 38.—PIECE OF ASH-BARK, SHOWING MOTHER GALLERIES OF HYLESINUS CRENATUS ON THE INNER SIDE.

June 25, 1900.

I am very much obliged to you for all the great trouble which you have been good enough to take about the Ash-bark beetles, including your letter of the 23rd and the box of specimens received to-day. Some of the workings are quite certainly of H. fraxini. One bit catches the eye at a glance as showing quite typical galleries. In the long strip the workings are not so clearly distinguishable. According to descriptions or comparison with other specimens they appear to me of both kinds. But I really cannot think of giving you further trouble. We have all that is needed to make out a good, sound account, and I hope, if all be well, to do justice to the subject in my next Annual Report, and that you will be satisfied with my working up of the points of the infestation.

With renewed hearty thanks, yours very truly,

Eleanor A. Ormerod.

To A. W. George, Esq., Sedbury, Tidenham, Chepstow, Agent on Sedbury Estate.

Torrington House, St. Albans,

February 17, 1897.

Dear Sir,—My work is chiefly on injurious insects, so I am afraid I am not qualified to give you the exact name of this curious collection of cement-like pupa-cases. Still I may say that your description most resembles those of the Mason bee, a kind of Osmia which constructs cells of a plaster formed of little morsels of stone, earth, &c., and then fills them with food and lays an egg on it, walls up the cell, and begins another. The grub in due course hatches and feeds, and goes through its changes to the perfect bee—and somehow or other manages to make its exit. These cells are sometimes made on walls, in parties of as many as a dozen (as shown in a figure before me), but as I said, I am not a “specialist” on Hymenoptera (Bees and Wasps), so I would not like to express a decided opinion. Your mention of the Roman coin found near the Severn cliffs is very interesting, for it was quite inexplicable to my father how it happened that, whilst coins are just the things often found in such great plenty amongst Roman remains in the pottery, bones, &c., of which there was such quantity in the site of the Summer Station of the Augustan Legion from Cærwent on the Sedbury cliffs, we absolutely did not have a single coin. Circumstances since we left have made me think that the word I have underlined may be more correct than that none were found. On one occasion it chanced I went when the ditch-diggers were at their dinners, and under a little shelter of turf (which naturally I inspected) I found a very nice little Samian cup. No more were reported as found; but after we left I heard of a box being in one of the lofts over the stables, addressed to myself, which when opened was found to contain more of these Samian cups, and also geological specimens from the cliffs. Of course I wrote down at once, but (perhaps equally of course) by that time the box had vanished. Your letter of this morning recalled all this to me, and made me think that very likely the domestic collector of curiosities who appropriated the Samian cups also made a little collection of the coins, whose total absence appeared so surprising. This is a very long story, but I thought it might be of some interest to you.

I suppose most of our old work-people are gone?

Might I venture to trouble you, in case you should be good enough some day to find time to write, kindly to let me know whether my father and mother’s grave (vault) just below the high bank with the pathway on the top in Tidenham Churchyard (plate [VII].) is in proper repair? If anything is requisite I think you would likely be so very good as to tell me, and to whom I should apply to do the work. Trusting you will forgive the intrusion on your time of such a long letter, I beg to remain, yours truly,

Eleanor A. Ormerod.

PLATE XXV.
Ruins of Chepstow Castle, Monmouthshire.
(p. [16].)

To Edward T. Connold, Esq., F.E.S., Hon. General Secretary, Hastings and St. Leonards Natural History Society.

Torrington House, St. Albans,

July 4, 1900.

Dear Sir,—I think that perhaps before this reaches you, you will have heard from the Rev. E. N. Blomfield that these curiously formed damsons, of which you have forwarded me such excellent specimens, owe the galled growth to the attack of a parasite fungus. They are what you called popularly Bladder plums, or Pocket plums (fig. [39]), and the cause of this extraordinary growth is the presence of the fungus Exoascus pruni. I do not myself work on Fungi, so I should not have considered myself qualified to give you trustworthy information, but I see in Professor Marshall Ward’s good account of this attack, that, besides reproduction taking place by means of the spores carrying the disease from tree to tree, he mentions that the fungus can carry on its existence from year to year by means of its mycelium in the branches. Consequently much pruning back, as well as collecting and burning the “pockets,” is needed to combat the attack to any serviceable extent. I am not troubling you with details, for you would find them so well entered on in Ward’s useful little book, of which I gave the name yesterday to Mr. Blomfield, that I think you would prefer them in his wording. Hoping I may have assisted you a little in the matter.

FIG. 39.—POCKET OR BLADDER PLUM INFLATED AND DISTORTED BY THE FUNGOID ATTACK OF EXOASCUS PRUNI (After Sorauer).

December 19, 1900.

I am greatly obliged to you for the kind thought of sending me the photo of the Bladder plums. This shows the difference between the healthy and the diseased fruit so well that if I had not secured a figure of the diseased growth I think I should have asked your permission to copy part for my next Annual Report. This assuredly is not an insect attack. Still, as it may very often give rise to much perplexity, I thought that (with due explanation) there could be no objection to including your good contribution, and I hope that when in due time you receive your “contributor’s copy” you will not disapprove.

About Dr. Nalepa’s publications; I dare not offer to lend them, for all I have are copies presented successively during a long course of years, and if any mishap occurred, I should be in a difficult position. But if you have not yet applied to them, Messrs. W. Wesley & Son would be more likely to help you than anybody I am acquainted with. They would almost certainly be able to give you the titles of the successive publications and prices, and also procure for you such as are published. At one time I worked a great deal on vegetable galls, Cynips galls chiefly, but Phytoptus galls I have always found so very troublesome in several points of view that I have never worked on them more than I can help. Very truly yours,

Eleanor A. Ormerod.

To Messrs. W. J. Coleman & Sons, Fruit, Pea, and Potato Salesmen, Covent Garden Market.

Torrington House, St. Albans,

August 1, 1900.

Dear Sirs,—I would very gladly help you about the moth-caterpillar attack on your potatoes, but I am afraid that without caterpillar or moth I cannot name it. There are very many infestations to potato of caterpillars, nearly allied to what you will, I think, very likely know well as the “Turnip grub.” These are so numerous that it would be quite hopeless for me to endeavour to name merely from description and the chrysalides; and even with the caterpillar it would have been difficult (though I would with pleasure have tried), on account of some of these pests greatly resembling each other, and also some (identical grubs) altering their colours completely as they moult. I should have been glad to help you, but as these creatures are now turning to chrysalides the attack is presumably nearly over for the present.

P.S.—For general use in an attack of this kind the spray that you have been using, which is very nearly equivalent to the U.S.A. kerosene emulsion, is probably about as good as you could try; for I conjecture that you might not like to try “Paris-green”? Possibly this would not answer, and for various reasons—it being a ground crop as well as the tuber a food crop—it might not be desirable; still, I just name it.

August 4, 1900.

I am obliged by the fresh specimens of caterpillars received this morning from your agent, Mr. Carswell, and from these and the moths coming out to-day from the chrysalides previously sent me, I am able to say that the larvæ are those of the Plusia gamma moth, popularly known as the Silver Y-moth. I am not aware of these caterpillars having been recorded as injurious to potato leafage, excepting in the year 1892, when I had information of two attacks to this crop, in both instances from caterpillars migrating from clover. It is too late to-night to give you a detailed account, but I write now, as you will be interested to have the identification as soon as possible.

1, Eggs; 2, caterpillar; 3, chrysalis in cocoon; 4, moth.
FIG. 40.—GAMMA OR SILVER Y-MOTH, PLUSIA GAMMA, LINN.

August 5, 1900.

Your potato attack is, as I mentioned last evening, caused by the caterpillar of the Silver Y-moth, so named from a small bright mark on the fore-wings, in shape like the English Y or the Greek Gamma. The moth is about half an inch in the spread of the fore-wings, which have a satiny lustre and are varied with rich coppery, as well as grey and brown, marks. The hinder wings are greyish, with a brown border. The caterpillars are fairly recognisable by being what are called “half-loopers.” Having only two pairs of sucker feet beneath the body (besides the customary claw feet) they form a slight arch when they walk. The attack is occasionally very destructive and is one of those which we have proof of having been blown to us, in moth condition, from the Continent; and, from some information which has come to my hands since I received your letter, I think it is not at all unlikely such may be the case now, with another kind of crop. The caterpillars feed on many plants, those of the cabbage and turnip kind especially; also on Leguminosæ, as peas and beans. Sugar beet they are destructively partial to. I should not at all think that the attack was likely to recur to potatoes, or that, as the infestation is now past its destructive stage, it was worth troubling yourselves about. If you should desire more about it than I can easily condense into a moderate letter space, you would find a careful account of the attack, with a good figure, in my sixteenth Annual Report on Injurious Insects. Hoping, however, that my few notes may be all you require, yours truly,

Eleanor A. Ormerod.

CHAPTER XVIII
LETTERS TO PROFESSOR RILEY AND DR. HOWARD

Flour moth and Winter moth—Orchard growers’ Committee—John Curtis—Entomology in Cape Colony—Handbooks and Reports—The General Index—The LL.D.

The letters addressed to the two distinguished United States officials are unlike most of those we have passed. Miss Ormerod writes, as usual, in courteous and even in deferential terms to the two acknowledged chiefs among Entomological authorities in America. The considerable variety of subjects touched upon are dealt with in less simple language, and minor details give place to discussions on the higher polity of Economic Entomology. The letters contain internal evidence of the esteem in which her work was held by her correspondents.

1, Moth, with wings expanded; 2, moth, at rest; 3, caterpillar; 4, chrysalis—all magnified; lines showing natural length.
FIG. 41.—MEDITERRANEAN FLOUR MOTH, EPHESTIA KUHNIELLA, ZELL.

To Professor Riley, Entomologist to the Agricultural Department, Washington, U.S.A.

Torrington House, St. Albans, England.

March 6, 1889.

Dear Professor Riley,—We have got a flour caterpillar in England, newly arrived in the last two years, which is so very troublesome and injurious where it establishes itself that I should like to place a short account of it in your hands, hoping that at your leisure (I should rather say at your best convenience, for leisure you have none) you may kindly tell me whether you have it in the U.S.A., and, if so, whether you manage to keep it in check. The caterpillars were first observed in Europe in 1877 by Dr. Jul. Kuhn, of Halle, doing much mischief during the process of grinding some American wheat. The imagines from these larvæ were placed by Dr. Kuhn in the hands of Professor Zeller, who considered them to be Ephestia of a species previously undescribed, and they were named by him kuhniella (fig. [41]) specifically after their observer. All this most likely you know well, but it is the appearance of this “pest” here which I am more particularly writing to you about. In 1887 the caterpillars did great harm in some large stores in London, and last year the attack established itself in a wheat-flour steam-mill in the North of England. The great harm caused is by reason of the caterpillars “felting” up the meal or flour by the quantity of web which they spin in it. They feed, of course, but this is not so injurious as working up the flour together, as thus they clog the mill apparatus to a very serious extent. I have much reduced their numbers by getting the manager of the steam-mill to turn on steam to scald them; and cleaning, whitewashing, and some use of paraffin have done good. The real cure would be to change the material ground. If we could use ryemeal for a few weeks we could clear out effectually this wheat-flour-feeding caterpillar. Unfortunately, however, the delicate apparatus of our recently arranged wheat “roller” mills does not allow of this. One point that would help us in preventive measures would be to know where the attack comes from. I am told it is a “scourge” amongst the flour (or rather the meal, as it prefers the more branny parts) in wheat from Russia and Hungary at the Mediterranean ports, so I am making inquiries; but Dr. Lindeman is not aware of this attack having been noticed in Russia. Under these circumstances I thought that I would write to you about it, and if you are acquainted with this moth and the larval working, and, still more, if you know how to destroy it, I should feel greatly favoured and obliged by any information that you may kindly give. I believe that unless it has very recently been placed on your American lists of Lepidoptera it is not noted as known there, and I am trying to persuade myself that it is not all selfishness which makes me trouble you thus, but that if by any possibility you may not chance to have heard of the serious nature of the work of these larvæ, you may care to have a few lines about them. The moth is about ¾ in. in spread of the fore-wings, which are of pale grey with darker transverse markings; the hinder wings remarkable for their whitish semi-transparency with a darker line from the point along a part of the fore edge. The larvæ, when full-grown, as far as I see, are about five-eighths of an inch long. You will not care to have full description, but they have surprising instinct for travelling, and amazing strength. One that I watched to test this power escaped from under a little smooth-edged cardboard frame which I had placed on a woollen cloth on a quite flat table and pressed down with a one pound weight.

I hope before long to forward my twelfth Report for your acceptance and that it may meet your approval.

June 22, 1889.

I have not until to-day been able to find time to study your interesting and instructive Report (which reached me a little while ago), and now after my best thanks I hasten to offer some observations about our use over here of the word paraffin—see p. 104 of your Report. So far as I know or can learn, the different oils sold under the name of paraffin, kerosene, or crystal oil, only differ from each other by reason of treatment to secure various degrees of purity or refinement. The common paraffin oil is the coarsest; kerosene I understand is a little more refined, and a trifle higher in price; and crystal oil—or (as it is sometimes described in the trade) “A1 Crystal Oil”—is limpid like water, and the purest of all. I do not know why, but kerosene is a name little used here. Paraffin is certainly not a correct term for the fluid form, but this fluid or oil is used so enormously compared to the solid paraffin that the appended word oil necessary for correct description is usually omitted as being understood. I quite feel it is a loose and inaccurate plan, but so the matter stands. In the same number of my Annual Report from which you quote—namely, that for 1884 published 1885—at pp. 66-67, is a recipe for a mixture of soft soap with “paraffin or any other mineral oil.” It has been thoroughly tried over here, and found very useful. If you should think fit to experiment with it I should greatly like to know results.

A single report of appearance of Hessian fly (fig. [15]) here has been sent me on June 13—with specimens accompanying—full grown but still in larval condition. These were on lower shoots of wheat of which the plant was then coming into ear at Revell’s Hall near Hertford—the farm on which Hessian fly was first observed here.

September 23, 1889.

It was very kind of you to spare time to write to me before leaving England, and I well know how very much occupied you must have been, so must not be selfish enough to say how much I regretted not being able to have both the pleasure and the great benefit of a little conversation with you.

I beg to place in your hands the little brochure which I am now issuing on one of the consequences of warble presence, and might I ask Mr. L. O. Howard’s acceptance of the other copy? You will see I have tried to condense the points of the subject into a space that workers would not be frightened at. It would be a great satisfaction to me if the inquiry met with your approval, and if you should judge fit to forward the cause of prevention in your country, your high authority would be a great help in strengthening my hands here. If you care to have a packet of the leaflets for distribution it would be only a pleasure to me to send some for your acceptance.

I have just seen with great pleasure that the Association of Economic Entomologists has been formed, and that they have elected the highest representative of the important work as their First President. This is a great satisfaction to me, and I hope ere long I may have the honour of being enrolled amongst its members.

You pay me a compliment in saying you would care to have an occasional contribution of mine in your valuable “Insect Life.” If I had anything that I thought would be of sufficient interest to send, I would very gladly do so.

[Here a contribution on the “Shot-borer Beetle” (Appendix [D]) followed, which was published by Professor Riley. See also page 199.]

April 10, 1890.

I must take up a little of your valuable time in offering my best thanks for the exceedingly interesting transmission, received through your kindness this morning. Your own “Insect Life,” 3 pts.; “The Root Knot disease”; and Mr. Koebele’s “Australian Thrips” are all very valuable contributions to my library, and I greatly wish I were able to reciprocate more worthily. There is one point in reply to which, if you are quite willing, I should much like to be allowed to insert a few lines. It is to the paragraph headed “Traps for the Winter Moth Useless,” p. 289, of March No. of “Insect Life.” Mr. R. McLachlan is mentioned as having stated that traps which aim at destruction of the males of the Cheimatobia brumata, Winter moth (fig. [30]) are useless, as enough will remain to fertilize the winged females. This I should have conjectured to be a well-known fact—but it is not this point which we are in any way working on, in any of the prevention details with which I am myself acquainted. Our difficulty, as you will see mentioned in my thirteenth Report, if you will kindly turn to p. 67, is the transportation of the females in the act of pairing by the winged males to the trees. This is a point much observed in this country, and I have to-day once again had my attention drawn to this difficulty in the matter of prevention, by a Somersetshire correspondent who in confirmation of his observation has preserved the pair in his collection. It is solely to meet this difficulty that we use tarred boards and lights in any preventive operations with which I am connected. I do not see the “Gardeners’ Chronicle,” and I am not in communication with Mr. McLachlan or I would have replied in my own country and given the necessary explanations, but, if you approve, I should much like to be allowed to insert the above observations, otherwise the various Superintendents and myself might appear to your readers (whose good opinion I should like to merit) as wonderfully ignorant of what I believe is a well-known fact.

We have now formed a kind of Society Conference with Experimental Committee of some of our best orchard growers in the West of England for the purpose of themselves experimenting, and reporting to the frequently recurring meetings—as to the effects of Paris-green, London-purple, &c. At last our people are roused to feel that “greasing” will not do everything.

I shall look with exceeding interest to the result of your Hypoderma or œstrus (Warble and Botfly) experiments. I sincerely hope that you will be able to rear the imago.

I have been greatly disturbed (and am consequently not writing you in as good form as I could wish) by a report being published in several of our London papers that I had been thrown from a carriage and met with serious injuries. This is altogether erroneous, but the many applications, and much writing and wiring to get the press to stop the report, has been indeed disturbing, and it has wasted me much time.

With kind regards and all good wishes from my sister and myself, pray believe me, yours very sincerely,

Eleanor A. Ormerod.

To Dr. L. O. Howard, Entomologist U.S. Department of Agriculture, Washington.

Torrington House, St. Albans,

July 26, 1894.

Dear Mr. Howard,—I do not myself know what arrangements the Royal Agricultural Society of England made with John Curtis.[^[68]]

In the “Gardeners’ Chronicle” for October 18, 1862, however, I find at p. 983, vol. iii., the following remarks in a short notice of the decease of John Curtis, which I transcribe in case they should be of interest. After mentioning that he had for many years been engaged in investigating the habits of insects injurious to farm and garden produce, the writer continues: “These he published in detached memoirs in the ‘Gardeners’ Chronicle’ under the signature of ‘Ruricola,’ and in the ‘Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society.’ At a subsequent period they were collected into a single volume and published under the title of ‘Farm Insects.’ It was chiefly on account of the value of these articles that Mr. Curtis was awarded a pension from the Civil List which was augmented about three years since on account of the sad loss of sight which he experienced.” The note is given as quoted from the “Athenæum,” and in case you should not have references to Curtis having the pension he so well earned, I thought you might care for the extract.

Thank you for letting me know of Professor Riley’s visit to England; I greatly desire to have a long talk with him. He may have comfort in having such a skilled successor. Special thanks also for your paper on the Army worm, Leucania unipunctata.[^[69]] It is such a good one, and the remedies so practicable. I hope to quote from this presently—duly acknowledged. You speak very truly as to information not being asked until the attack is so set up that much hope of victory over it is lost.

I should very much like to be allowed to offer my best regards, and respectful expression of my admiration of their good work, to the many kind friends who will be present at the Economic Entomology meeting in August, together with my hearty good wishes for the prosperity of the Association and its members. I owe much to the kindness of my U.S.A. colleagues and friends.

October 17, 1894.

I hasten to thank you for your letter received this afternoon, setting me right as to the origin of the bran-mash and Paris-green application for killing “cutworms” (leather jackets). I should indeed be sorry not to give credit in the right quarter, and you may rest assured that the first time I have to mention the matter this shall be set right. I am sorry also on my account not to have known that this remedy was in use, and now you have pointed the way I shall be very glad to look the matter up. Through the kind liberality (public as well as private), with which I have always been treated by your country, I have a truly valuable library of your U.S.A. works, from which I often and gratefully profit.

I am looking forward very much to getting your paper on Economic Entomology, but at present I have only seen pleasant notices of it, and I am greatly desirous to read it in extenso. Attention to this subject is spreading very satisfactorily on the Continent. I am now in communication with Professor J. Jablonowski, of the Entomological staff of the Hungarian Government Department of Agriculture at Budapest. He is doing very careful and good work on Thysanoptera (Thrips). Also at Helsingfors (Finland) I hear from Dr. Enzio Reuter that they are contemplating arranging an Entomological Station, and I hope I may be in communication.

I am now beginning to pass my eighteenth Report through the press. One of the interesting appearances of the past season has been a widely spread outbreak of Charæas graminis, Antler moth (p. [104]). This was more or less in seven contiguous counties in the South-west of Scotland, and though not remarkable in itself, yet, as there were one or two competent observers on the spot, some good notes were secured, especially as to presence of parasites, which I hope in due time you may find of some interest. There was much presence of a Mermis in one district. Out of a single larva I withdrew in three pieces about 18 inches of thread-worm. Also there was presence of “flacherie” and some Tachina larvæ. Dr. Ritzema Bos, of Wageningen, who is always most kind in colleagueship, helps me much about identification.

I hope to have a good deal to say about Heterodera schachtii (an eel-worm enemy of hop-roots). Different kinds of eel-worms seem each year to be showing themselves more, and I am greatly desiring to find whether the schachtii may not have come to the roots of oats here as well as in Holland. The Great Tortoiseshell butterfly, Vanessa polychloros (fig. [13]), which is not common in this country, made a destructive appearance on elms and cherry leafage in one locality in Hants. And not far from Lymington was a destructive attack in one wheatfield of the caterpillars of a small moth, which ate out the heart of the young plant and was utterly ruinous. I cannot find the kind of attack on record (that is from a Lepidopterous butterfly or moth, larva), and we are all perplexed as to species. There seems little doubt that it is a Miana, and it appears to me most like expolita, but none of us contrived to rear it.

March 23, 1895.

I have been long in your debt for a letter, but sometimes it is very difficult to keep all work in hand, and I am sure you will forgive me. I had been endeavouring before your letter on Warble came to hand, and have since also been trying in some of what appeared the most likely quarters to gain information whether the form of attack which you mention in the U.S.A. was observable here, but as yet I have not been able to find that such is the case.

Many thanks to you for your presentation copy of your most interesting paper on “Rise and Progress of Economic Entomology,” and your only too flattering mention of my own work (pp. 295-97). On the continent of Europe there is grand work going forward, and the colleagueship I am favoured with from many of the leading Continental Government Entomologists is most kind and gratifying to me.

September 23, 1895.

I think it is but a proper respect to you, as Entomologist of the Department of Agriculture of the U.S.A., to mention what I have been doing relative to the recent appointment of one of the U.S.A. staff of skilled Entomologists to the post of British Government Entomologist in Cape Colony. On the 17th inst. I heard from Mr. C. P. Lounsbury from Cape Town, with a letter of introduction enclosed from Dr. Fernald, which, he regretted, from pressure of time he had not been able to deliver. So did I, for I should very much like to have made his personal acquaintance, as well as that of Mrs. Lounsbury, of whom Dr. Fernald writes in such high terms.

I think it is a most happy thing for the Cape Colony to have secured the services of a good, trained Entomologist, but that he should bring with him in the person of his wife a lady so highly qualified to be a companion (an “alter ego”) in his work was a good fortune past hope. I wrote at once to Mr. Lounsbury expressing the pleasure it would be to me to co-operate so far as lay in my power. And I have since written to the same effect to the Agent General for the Cape of Good Hope, especially drawing his attention to the fact (though of course I did not word it in this way) that really instead of one Entomologist they had thus secured the services also of an excellently trained assistant! Yesterday morning I received a reply, expressing his best thanks, and mentioning that he was then communicating the contents of my letter to the Hon. the Secretary of Agriculture at Cape Colony, who he felt sure “will be extremely glad to hear the high opinion you entertain of the newly appointed Entomologist, and he will also be grateful for your friendly offer of co-operation in the work of that office.” I hope all this will meet with your approval. I am deeply indebted to the aid and encouragement I have received for years from the wonderful staff of workers of the U.S.A. and from its head—first Professor Riley, and now yourself—and if I can be of any service to a member of it by what I can do from here it would be a very great pleasure to me.

September 1, 1897.

I never before have ventured to submit one of my leaflets to you. I felt as if I should be taking a liberty. To-day, however, I have a request from the Boston Public Library for one of the leaflets on the House Sparrow, and I have therefore ventured to ask your acceptance of a few copies sent accompanying by book post. You will see that I have extracted largely from the excellent work of your own Board of Agriculture, but in a condensed work of this kind it is impossible to show the value and importance of the observations as I should greatly desire. At least I have acknowledged my obligation gratefully. I am sure I need not say that I should think it a pleasure and an honour if you cared to have some copies of the sparrow leaflet for distribution. The farmers here are delighted to have something reliable, and their reports confirm the severe losses which P. domesticus causes. But there is virulent opposition from a few people who rail at me in a most unpleasant manner.

Lately I had the great pleasure of a little visit from our good friend Dr. Fletcher, and we spent half an hour or so in cutting up some Plum-wood, infested by what I took to be the Xyleborus saxeseni (Shot-borer beetle) (fig. [46]), given as a maker of flat cells, or burrows, by Eichhoff; but very likely you have heard about this from him already.

I have had some nice observations in the earlier part of the year of the workings of the Angoumois moth, Sitotroga (Gelechia) cerealella, which was imported in such quantity from North Africa in one or more cargoes of barley as to give some alarm.

The wings, such as they are, of the female Lipoptena cervi (fig. [24]), have given me some good figures. There is demonstrably at times a mere abortive wing, but whether sometimes there has not been a developed wing which has been torn across so that only about an eighth of the wing remains, seems to me open to doubt. Also the Lesser earwig, Labia minor, has been locally a little troublesome. Altogether there have been a good many rather nice observations sent in, which I hope may presently be of some interest to you. Pray accept my sincere thanks for the enormous benefit I receive from the valuable publications so kindly sent me, and believe me with most hearty good wishes, &c.

1 and 2, Moth, magnified and natural size; 3, caterpillar, magnified, and line showing natural length; 4, pierced grain, natural size and magnified; 5, grain with frass, magnified; 6, chrysalis in grain, and removed, magnified, and line showing natural length.
FIG. 42.—ANGOUMOIS MOTH, FLY WEEVIL (U.S.A), SITOTROGA (GELECHIA)
CEREALELLA, OLIV.

1, Male; 2, female with wings expanded, much magnified; line showing natural length of body and forceps.
FIG. 43.—LESSER EARWIG, FORFICULA MINOR, LINN., LABIA MINOR, LEACH.

April 7, 1898.

Your letter of approval was a very great pleasure to me, and I greatly value your words of encouragement. Before this letter reaches you, you will perhaps have received a visit from Dr. Ritzema Bos, who gave me the pleasure of a visit on his way to the U.S.A. to investigate the amount of danger to be feared in Holland from this A. perniciosus (San José scale). From what I gather from the different publications with which I am most liberally supplied from your own headquarters and the experimental stations, I hope that we need not fear this veritable pest making a settlement here. I have an impression that a part of the commotion here is from a desire to exclude foreign fruit imports. I am working now on what I hope may make a “Handbook of Insect Attacks, injurious to Orchard and Bush fruits, with means of Prevention and Remedy.” Fruit growing is extending very much with us, and so many little-known attacks have been reported to me in the last few years, that I thought a volume including these, with our old standing attacks brought up to date and very fully illustrated, would meet a need here. Also I was somewhat afraid that if I did not do it myself some one or other might be “good enough” to save me the trouble.

Our chief crop trouble during the spring and winter has been the presence of Tylenchus devastatrix (eel-worm), in clover. This still continues, but I hope that with good growing weather and sulphate of potash (as a manure dressing to encourage growth) we may fight it down.

March 24, 1899.

I am afraid that you will have been thinking me very negligent in not replying sooner to your kind letter, but I felt sure you would understand that if I could have sent any information in reply to your inquiry about the “Cigarette beetle” I should have hastened to submit it.

My Annual Report is late this year, for work on my Handbook, &c., &c., threw me late.

I have been following the urgent advice of our good and much regretted friend, Dr. Lintner, by having a “General Index” prepared to the series of twenty-two Annual Reports (chap. [IX].). It is not a magnificently exhaustive compilation giving everything that can be desired, like that to your invaluable “Insect Life,” but I think that both entomologically and practically it will be of service. When printed, I purpose to forward copies for your own acceptance, likewise to Professor Webster, to the State Entomologist, Albany, and a few other positions where I think they very likely have a set of my twenty-two annual issues, and therefore might care to have the Index. But if I were not intruding too much on your kind good nature, would you allow me to send a few, say a packet of ten or twenty, to yourself, which perhaps you would so greatly oblige me as to present to mutual friends whom you might see. I should think this a kind favour, for I might go rather astray in my sendings.