--ANON.

I have always been fascinated by the beauty of butterflies and moths,
and I think I began collecting when I was about eleven, as I remember
having a net when I was at school at Rottingdean. My first exciting
capture was a small tortoiseshell, and I was much disappointed when I
discovered that it was quite a common insect. In 1917 some nettles
here were black with the larvæ of this species, but I think they must
have been nearly all visited by the ichneumons, which pierce the skin,
laying their eggs in the living body of the larva, as the butterflies
were not specially common later. I was, however, fortunate in
identifying a specimen of the curious variety figured in Newman's
_British Butterflies_, variety 2, from one in Mr. Bond's collection;
it has a dark band crossing the middle of the upper wings, but, though
interesting, it is not so handsome as the type. I did not catch this
specimen, as I do not like killing butterflies now, but I had ample
leisure to observe it quite closely on the haulm of potatoes. It was
decidedly smaller than the type.

The old garden at Aldington in the repose of a June evening was a
place of fragrant joy from honeysuckle on poles and arches, and just
as the light was fading the huge privet hawk-moths, with quivering
wings and extended probosces, used to sip the honey from the long
blossoms. I could catch them in a net, but these specimens were nearly
all damaged from their energetic flight among the flowers, and perfect
ones are easy to rear from the larvæ, feeding in autumn on privet in
the hedges.

Later in the summer the Ghost Swift appeared about twilight, the white
colour of the male making it very conspicuous. Twilight at Aldington