An Angler at Large/Chapter 32
As I came along the withy bed to the wooden bridge to-night for a last look north-westward, I encountered a dim young woman, who stood in an attitude of extraordinary alertness, grasping a butterfly net and peering determinedly into the profundities of a hedge. Even as I reached her she made a clever little sweep with her weapon, and, holding it up against the exquisite spectacle beyond the downs, uttered a little satisfied noise and got out the killing bottle. On the bridge stood a man, a shortish man, in a soft hat, smoking a cigarette; he, too, carried the odious muslin bag. A pair of bicycles—male and female—assisted at the sorry sport, leaning, bored, against a rail. These entomologists, having smeared all the posts in the vicinity with a boiled mixture of treacle, brewing sugar, and essence of jargonel pear, were now filling in their time (until it grew dark enough for the Noctuas to come to the horrid bait) in netting such slow-flying Geometers as had the misfortune to cross their path.
I fell into talk with them, found them civil and, the man at any rate, most willing to speak of his hobby. He had marked the withy bed, it appeared, when passing one day, as a likely place for the Red Underwing, an insect which, he bade me note, looked very fine on the sugar. I refrained from saying that it would certainly look finer there than in his cursed cabinet, with a pin through its thorax and its wings set out stiffly at the correct entomological angle. It never does any good to be offensive. This man was a respectable citizen—one couldn't doubt it after looking for one moment on his short side-whiskers, his feeble moustache, his pince-nez and his pear-shaped head. He would be a teacher in a board school, or a grocer in a small way. He might even sell old furniture, or keep a little bookshop. But he had been a schoolmaster at one time of his life, I swear it. His particular manner is only acquired in one trade—and it never loses its hold on a man. Yes, it would have been a mistake to insult him. We are all vicious in spots, and because this admirable husband (he looked too careful to be a father) gave way to moth-killing, who was I (with a rod in my hand) to take him to task. He would only have grown pink, dignified, and hostile. But he would not have stopped treacling. Therefore I was friendly, offered a cigarette, which was accepted with the air of conferring a favour, and drew him out upon his hateful amusements.
His collection of butterflies was practically complete, it appeared. No, he had only been at it five years, but this part of the country was exceptionally rich in lepidoptera. He was quite modest about his success. The wife—as you might say, the cook—she was at his elbow, but he spoke of her as if she were in the other hemisphere—had helped him. As he spoke I became aware that the said wife was moving anxiously about in front of me, net in hand, and, following the direction of her eagle gaze, which darted hither and thither from one side to the other of my own head, I perceived a dusky shape, a moth, that fluttered against the sky. The lust of capture shone in the woman's eye. Her mouth was tense with its suppression, for she knew that the usages of polite society forbid the moth-netting of unknown men. Yet the prospect of the insect escaping was agonising to her. I courteously moved aside. The net swooped. She retired in the direction of the death-bottle.
Yes, the wife was very keen, very keen. She had, that evening, taken—taken, not caught, is the word—emarginata. It was she who last summer discovered the Marbled Whites in a certain little wood on the Isle of Wight. Between them they had murdered—taken, I should say—over fifty of those delicate creatures. No, I was not at all inconveniencing them. They had nothing to do now but wait until it was dark enough to visit the sugar. I thought of them, going round with their lanterns and cyanide of potassium, bottling the Red Underwings, and bottling them, and bottling them, and I wondered if it could ever be dark enough for such work.
Did you ever see a Red Underwing? A robust and noble insect: great grey and black wings above, and below bright cherry slashed with black. The bold splendour of the creature, when it is fresh from its pupa-shell, takes away your breath. It is a big chief of the Noctuas, rivalled by few, outshone by none. Among the Hawk Moths alone you shall look for its master. And my decent acquaintance confessed, without a tremor, to having stifled, three nights previously, fifteen of these joyful lives. He and the wife were late to bed that night, "But," he said, "after a long evening out of doors, how soundly one sleeps!"
Yes, it was surprising how many people collected nowadays. When he began, five years before—(accursed day!)—so general was the amusement which his net excited that he was quite nervous about carrying it. "Bug Hunter!" they called after him. (No doubt he would grow pink and pretend not to hear, going on with head high.) But now nobody noticed the net, and wherever one went one found someone with whom to exchange information and specimens—or, should one say swop confidences and corpses?
Yes, there were fewer lepidoptera than formerly. The common things that nobody wanted would always abound, but undoubtedly the time was not far off when the rarer kinds would be worked out. He announced the approach of this frightful catastrophe with the absolute certitude of Jonah crying the destruction of Nineveh, but without any visible emotion. Yet there was a certain sadness in his voice, as if he contemplated the disappearance from England of those rarer kinds regretfully (for the good hunting), but fortified by the knowledge that he would be in at the death. Though every moth should become extinct, nothing could ever rob him of the memory of, for example, fifteen Red Underwings slain on a July night in the year now current.
The fact was, he went on, that nobody was content with the number they had of any given insect. It was always possible to make a series more complete, whether by more perfect individuals, or by a wider range of variety. The Silver Washed Fritillary, now. There was a butterfly, now, that was very hard to take in perfect condition. The brambles among which they fly, knock their wings to pieces. (A Silver Washed Fritillary is on its upper side a ravishing arrangement in sepia, raw sienna, and black. Beneath, it defies description. It's name is the simplest and best.) Yes, the brambles knocked them about. He evidently resented the creation of brambles. He looked forward to his trip to the New Forest, due in a few weeks. The Silver Washed should be out by then. He had only twenty, and very few varieties. He seemed to lick his lips. Speaking of Fritillaries, last year he took the Duke of Burgundy (this is one of those adorable little butterflies which will presently be worked out). Seventeen he and his friend had in half an hour. And though they returned again and again to the spot, they never saw another. I suppose they were, as far as that place is concerned, worked out.
He complained that the White Admirals were getting scarcer each year. Now God, when He made the underside of the White Admiral, took His colours from the utterly lovely dawn which must have ushered in the sixth day of Creation. And the Little Blue (a tiny bit of the sky, murderers!)—he hadn't seen a Little Blue for three years. The last time he encountered it—rising all round him they were—he took thirty. Thirty Little Blues! There is a special Hell for this man and his fellows.
I left him and the wife and went to another bridge, not far off, and leaning upon the rail I asked myself what in the name of insanity was this man doing, and what in the name of stupidity are we doing to let him do it? By his own confession this is going on all over the country. There are thousands of these respectable miscreants in our midst steadily "working out" the Duke of Burgundy Fritillary. They dignify their proceedings by the name of Entomology. The boy who robs a bird's nest might call himself an Ornithologist, but that would be no reply to a prosecution under the Wild Birds' Protection Act. Why is a White Admiral less worthy of protection than a golden-crested wren? It is not for me to say which is the more beautiful of the two. But if it is thought good to prevent any madman who chooses from going forth in the breeding season to the indiscriminate slaughter of golden-crested wrens and ger-falcons, why do we loose him upon the White Admirals during the short time they have on earth in which to propagate their species? If Parliament cannot contemplate a birdless England, with what drug—save that of unthinkingness—does it blind its eyes to an England without butterflies and without moths?