The Entomologist Captain Charles Blomer.
Jan 2, 2019 10:11:34 GMT
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The Entomologist Captain Charles Blomer.
Captain Charles Blomer (1783-1835) is perhaps best known among British Lepidopterists for capturing the first Vanessa virginiensis Drury, 1773 in Britain and having a moth named after him, the Blomer's Rivulet Venusia blomeri Curtis, 1832. Blomer was the first entomologist to record insects in a number of areas of Wales and England. Many species that he recorded from those localities are now absent, and some of them are extinct in Britain. Very little has been previously published about this industrious 19th century entomologist.
Nothing seems to have been recorded about Blomer's early life, he had a distinguished military career, serving in the army during the Napoleonic wars. In 1795 he joined the 20th East Devonshire Regiment of Foot as an ensign, by 1801 he was a lieutenant in the 31st Huntingdonshire Regiment of Foot. In 1801 he served in Egypt under Ralph Abercromby, where he was wounded, being awarded a pension of £100. By 1807 he was promoted to Captain and with the 31st foot fought in the Peninsular Wars between April-July 1809 and September 1811 - April 1814. In 1813 he was present at the battles of Vitoria, Pyrenees, Nivelle and Nive. By 1815 Blomer was on half pay with the 36th Herefordshire Regiment of Foot. In 1817 he married Elizabeth Phelps Martin of Withybush House in Pembrokeshire, Wales. There are no known portraits of Blomer.
Blomer's Diary and Letter's to James Charles Dale.
The main source of information used in this article was found in the Dale archives held by the Library of Entomology at the Oxford University of Natural History. James Charles Dale (1791 – 1872) the squire of Glanvilles Wootton in Dorset corresponded with many fellow entomologists, their letters and his journals and diaries are a unique collection covering much of the 19th century, containing much invaluable entomological and sociological information.
Blomer wrote 52 letters to Dale between 1826 & 1834. The letters detail the insects Blomer captured and those that he exchanged with Dale, together with other significant historical information regarding this period of early British entomology. Blomer was on friendly terms with Dale, they exchanged insects, and they met on several occasions. They collected together at Teignmouth, Devon and in the New Forest, Hampshire. After Blomer's death Dale bought one of Blomer's insect cabinets and came into the possession of his entomological diary, which he annotated, as he also did to his letters. Blomer's diary commences in 1820 at Bideford, North Devon, but for this year there only a few entries for July, two previous double sided pages having been torn out and are missing. For 1821 there are only entries from Bideford between March and May ; for 1822 there are entries for April to July that he made while visiting his wife's family at Withybush, Pembrokeshire and during a vacation at Ilfracombe, Devon in August; from 1823 onward there are comprehensive insect records chiefly from Bideford North Devon, Teignmouth South Devon, Withybush Pembrokeshire, Bridgend Glamorganshire, The Forest of Dean Gloucestershire, the New Forest and the Isle of Wight in Hampshire. Blomer certainly seems to have enjoyed exploring different areas, residing at various times, not only those places listed above but also at Bristol, Swansea, Cheltenham, Chepstow and London. He and his wife also toured northern England and southern Scotland in 1831.
Bideford, Devon.
By 1820 Blomer and his wife Elizabeth were residing at Bideford, a historic port on the River Torridge in North Devon in south-west England. Blomer collected all insects orders but was particularly keen on the Lepidoptera. In this area he collected insects at the extensive coastal sand dunes of Appledore and Braunton Burrows and in the wooded river valleys of the Torridge and Yeo. One of the main difficulties of collecting insects during this period was identifying your captures, as there was very little available literature on the subject. In a letter to Dale dated 2 January 1826 Blomer mentioned his entomological literature consisted of the Entomologist's Useful Compendium by George Samouelle, published in 1819, and parts of John Curtis' British Entomology that had began to appear in 1824, the other earlier works being too expensive. Blomer was also keen on ornithology, although at that period it either meant making a collection of their eggs or shooting the adult birds for taxidermy, he preferred the former. He had the pioneering Ornithological Dictionary (1802) by George Montagu (1753 –1815) who like himself had been an English Army officer.
The only entomologist Blomer had met at Bideford was the engraver William Raddon who had looked over the insect specimens in his cabinet for two hours, but was only able to name a few of them. Dale kindly agreed to identify Blomer's new insects and he also sent insects for identification to James Francis Stephens and John Curtis, both distinguished entomologists living in London. When Blomer sent insects to Dale at Glanvilles Wootton he asked in his letters that if he saw anything new, to pass it on to Curtis that he might able publish and illustrate it in British Entomology. Raddon had resided at Instow, a hamlet a few miles to the north of Bideford by the River Torridge. Nearby on the sand dunes of Appledore and Braunton Burrows between 1806 & 1819 Raddon claimed to have found numerous larva of the rare immigrant Spruge Hawk Moth Hyles euphorbiae feeding on Sea Spurge Euphorbia paralias, which resulted in a number of specimens being sold to collectors. (Raddon, 1834, Allan,1943). Blomer had visited Braunton Burrows previously but on the 28 & 29 August 1824 he went to the sand dunes especially to search for the larva of H. euphorbiae but was unsuccessful, although examining privet bushes by the sea he was rewarded by 6 full grown larvae of Sphinx ligustri, Britain's largest resident moth. The following year on 8 August 1825 he searched Appledore Burrows for H. euphorbiae, again finding none, however he was fortunate he recorded in his journal to find five full grown larvae of the Death's Head Hawk-moth Acherontia atropos in a potato field, close to the village church. On 12 August of that year he again searched for Braunton Burrows for H. euphorbiae with the same results as previously.
In Ford Wood near Bideford on 28 May 1823 Blomer recorded in his diary that he caught a specimen of dictynna flying along a road. Melitaea dictynna Esper, 1778 is a synonym of Melitaea diamina Lang, 1789, a butterfly that is widespread in central and southern Europe but has not been recorded from Britain. There was some confusion as to the identity of species of Melitaea at this time, the British species was Melitaea athalia Rottemburg, 1775. Blomer also found M. athalia in June 1823 & 1824 above the Landcross Bridge by the River Yeo, where he recorded it flying with Boloria selene. M. athalia was once more widespread in England, but like many other British butterflies it suffered a widespread decline, as a consequence it is now only found in Devon in the Lydford Valley on the edge of Dartmoor, it also occurs in the neighbouring counties of Cornwall and Somerset with a disjunct population in Kent and Essex, in eastern England, having been reintroduced in the latter county. Previous to finding of the larvae of A. atropos at Appledore, on 21 August 1824, a woman brought Blomer five full grown larvae of this species that she had found in her garden at Bideford, the following day she brought him five more for which she was given two shillings, these duly pupated and produced some fine specimens. A. atropos is an immigrant species that is a much less frequent visitor to Britain today. (Waring, Townsend, 2017). On the 16 & 17 June 1825 Blomer obtained five larvae of Thecla betulae by beating the sloe bushes at Ottery St Mary in East Devon.
Blomer obtained many specimens of Lepidoptera and other insects by beating the trees and shrubs with a stick, holding out a hand held sheet (beating tray) or his upturned net to catch those larvae or adults that were dislodged. Blomer mentioned to Dale in a letter dated the 16 May 1826 that he had built a shed in his garden, covered the floor in a foot of sawdust and then sunk pots with foodplants and larvae, he then occasionally lightly watered the sawdust which was drawn up through the holes of the pots into the earth, not only did this keep the foodplant fresh but kept them at a marginal temperature, and damp earth was available to those that used this to pupate. He had much success with this method. His wife Elizabeth who Blomer always referred to in his letters to Dale as Mrs B was an accomplished artist and painted her husband's larva, making her drawings of them into a book, Dale was offered the loan of it for a month or so. Blomer also recorded how he dispatched his insects he writes " I have had a small tea kettle made, holding the head of the insect in the steam, the insect is dead in an instant, I even use this method with butterflies and moths. This method will even kill Sphix Atropos or any of the large bodied moths, I could kill them with a red hot needle in the thorax, a method recommended by Samouelle."
In one exchange of insects with Blomer during 1826 Dale sent him a pair of Cyaniris semiargus from the meadows of Glanvilles Wootton, a butterfly now extinct in Britain, Nymphalis polychloros, another butterfly that had vanished from this country, Erebia aethiops, collected by Dale on the Isle of Arran, Scotland during 1825 with Curtis and another Scottish butterfly Aricia artaxerxes collected the same year, together with a pair of the now extinct Lycaena dispar from fens of Whittlesea Mere. As travelling was so difficult in this period, exchanging insects was a very good way of building up your collection, and in this respect corresponding with a well travelled entomologist such as Dale and receiving such good specimens, Blomer was indeed fortunate, and he was certainly very pleased with his new acquisitions and he was obviously sending good things in return. In a letter dated April 1826 Blomer had told Dale he only had a pair of the beautiful green noctuid Moma alpium and one of them he had promised to Curtis. At this time Blomer's cabinet of Lepidoptera consisted of 18 drawers of British species and one of foreign, the latter were all obtained by exchange.
On a visit to the city of Exeter during April 1826 Blomer had gone to see the insect collection of the Zoologist William Elford Leach (1791-1836) formerly an Assistant Keeper in the Natural History Department of the British Museum, which he had presented to The Devon and Exeter Institution. Blomer observed that Leach's valuable collection of insects had been neglected and were covered in mould and many were destroyed through the attention of mites. Entomologists at that time generally used camphor blocks in their cabinet drawers to deter mites and dermestids. On 16 May 1826 Blomer wrote to Dale that he had also captured two of the scarce coastal moth Actebia praecox that he found resting on the sand dunes, this is one of our few Brirish noctuids with greenish coloured forewings.
Actebia praecox. Dale coll, OUMNH.
Teignmouth, Devon.
In the late summer of 1826 Blomer moved to the town of Teignmouth on the coast of South Devon. One of his favourite collecting grounds here was Little Hadon Heath situated on the hills above the town, which survives to this day as a nature reserve, he also had a varied coastline to explore, miles of sandstone sea cliffs with sandy bays which led to the extensive sand dunes of Dawlish Warren. On 15 September 1826 Blomer was descending from the heath into the valley, where he recorded in his diary he captured a Colias hyale, later he took a number of them at a cove by the sea. On 4 October 1827 he set off in the morning to the cove with his large folding net (clap net) where he caught a further six specimens of what he thought were C. hyale, which were flying with another immigrant butterfly Vanessa cardui. C. hyale was once a frequent visitor to this country, being rarely recorded here in recent years. (Thomas & Lewington, 2010). There seems to have been some confusion in Blomer's identification of his Colias specimens, they were almost certainly not C. hyale but Colias croceus. When Dale later purchased Blomer's cabinet containing the Lepidoptera, he made an inventory of all of its contents and there were no specimens of C. hyale listed, it did include a small series of C. croceus (listed by Dale as Colias edusa) that included two of the pale female form helice. The two form helice were taken later in the Isle of Wight. The scientific name C. edusa Fabricius, 1787 saw widespread usage in Britain in the 19th century, which is a synonym of Colias croceus Geoffroy, 1785. When Blomer recorded in his diary that he took the same yellow butterfly Colias hyale at Teignmouth on 1 August 1827, Dale later annotated it to C. edusa.
On 15 May 1827 Blomer wrote to Dale that he had been confined to his bed since 10 March due a bad case of Erysipelas but thankfully he had recovered and had been mothing at night and had caught the Noctuid Trichoplusia ni, an immigrant species that is only recorded here in small numbers each year. Blomer was going to London that May for a week to ten days, he was taking a box of insects with him as he hoped to meet Curtis and Stephens and examine their collections. Blomer caught two species of the clearwing moth Bembecia ichneumoniformis of the Sesiidae family on 2 June 1827 that apparently had only been recently added to the British list. On 18 June 1827 on the opposite side of the River Teign, crossing on the newly opened Shaldon Bridge, in a valley below the hamlet of Ringman he went beating for larvae, among his collections were 3 larvae of Thecla betulae and captured an adult of that butterfly flying along a hedgerow by the river on 5 August of that year. He beat a half grown lava of Nymphalis polychloros at Teignmouth on 1 July 1827 and in the Coombe valley running down from the hills into the town, he took an adult on the 26 July and on 7 August a fine pair on a steep bank flying around elm trees. After, a long decline N. polychloros disappeared from Britain around 1950. On 30 July 1827 he visited Bradley Wood at Newton Abbot, where he again took N. polychloros and captured the fritillaries Argynnis adippe and Argynnis adippe. Walking along the Dawlish road on 14 August 1827 Blomer found a fine specimen of the large immigrant hawk moth Agrius convolvuli, his good fortune continued the next day, by the new river bridge he took another specimen resting on stones. A red letter day came on 6 September 1827, with his wife Elizabeth he had crossed the River Teign by the bridge, Blomer writing in his diary " Walked with Elizabeth on the Ness Head at Shaldon, caught a very singular variety of H. janira or Meadow Brown of a cream colour with blotch of orange in the center of the forewings." Hipparchia janira Linnaeus, 1758 is a junior synonym of Maniola jurtina Linnaeus, 1758. In December 1827 Blomer wrote to Dale of his capture of the rare cream coloured aberration of M. jurtina and hoped it would be an inducement for Dale to visit him in the spring, as he was most disappointed that he was unable to visit him in the autumn. The extreme aberration of M. jurtina captured by Blomer is now in the Dale collection, and has the label, Blomer 1827, and an erroneous printed label Dartmoor placed at its side, that was probably added by C.W. Dale.
Maniola jurtina ab grisea-aurea Oberthur,1909. Teignmouth, Devon, 1827, C. Blomer. Dale coll, OUMNH.
J.C. Dale at Teignmouth.
Dale did not come to visit Blomer in the spring because of the poor weather and it had not much improved when Dale came on 20 May 1828, having caught the 8.30 mail coach from Sherborne to Exeter and then a 4pm coach from that City, arriving at Teignmouth at 7pm in the evening. Blomer was overjoyed to finally meet the entomologist. The next day after dinner with the collector Mr R. T. Abraham from Exeter they took their nets and went mothing at Little Haldon Heath, a couple of miles distant, for those species on the wing in the late evening and at dusk. On the 22 May they went to the sandhills of Dawlish Warren with Abraham and Blomer ever the enterprising entomologist took a garden rake, he had perfected a method of raking the sand for larvae and pupae and in this way he found 15 half grown larvae of Actebia praecox but, soon the rain set in, as it did when they had just reached Little Haldon Heath the next day. On the 24 May Dale left for Torquay.
The Royal Mail Coach from London to Exeter 1828, which Dale used to visit Blomer.
Pembrokshire 1828 and the capture of the first British specimen of Vanessa virginiensis.
On the 10 June 1828 Blomer and his family left Teignmouth to stay with his wife's mother at Withybush in Pembrokeshire, Wales. On 16 June Blomer visited the sandhills of Milford Haven where he took the noctuid Mythimna litoralis Curtis, 1827, this was only the second time it had been found in Britain, Dale having discovered it in 1824 on sandy cliffs of Mount Misery at Bournemouth in Hampshire that have long since been lost to coastal erosion. Among other lepidoptera he took several fine specimens of the wasp mimic Sesia bembeciformis of the family Sesiidae. It was a particularity wet summer and Blomer had a severe attack of rheumatism, as a result he was unable to go very far during August and September. He sent to Dale from his summer's collecting season in Pembrokshire 250 moths to be named.
During the July or August of 1828 Blomer took a small and dull specimen of what he thought was a diminutive specimen of Vanessa cardui, he later realized that it was different and thought it might be a new species, his specimen was later determined as Vanessa huntera Fabricius, 1775, a synonym of Vanessa virginiensis Drury, 1773. Blomer was at first unsure whether he took the specimen during his visits to Milford Haven or Withybush as he did not enter the capture in his diary, however he stated in a letter to Dale dated December 1829 that his wife recalled him showing her the specimen shortly after he captured at Withybush. Blomer was disappointed and upset with Curtis because he had refused to illustrate his specimen in his British Entomology. Curtis did not doubt the validity of his capture but since it was an American butterfly, and not a British one, would not include it in his work. The first published account of Blomer's capture of V. huntera (V. virginiensis) was by Dale (1830) in volume 3 of the Magazine of Natural History and Journal of Zoology. Blomer's specimen of V. virginiensis came into Dale's possession in 1829, after an exchange of a volume (12 parts) of Curtis' British Entomology. There have been around 20 records of V. virginiensis in Britain, all from the west coast of England and Wales, those immigrants may have arrived from the United States, however this species is present in the Canary Islands and migrants occasionally turn up in Portugal and Spain.
Vanessa virginiensis. Withybush, Pembrokshire, 1828, Blomer. Dale coll, OUMNH.
On 27 April 1829 Blomer visited Dale at Glanvilles Wootton to see his collection and was most impressed, he arrived at Sherborne by the mail coach at five in the afternoon, and Dale met him their in a gig. In the Magazine of Natural History and Journal of Zoology, (1829) Blomer had his first Natural History piece published regarding the Dartford Warbler and other birds of Devon. In a letter dated 10 March 1830 Blomer told Dale that he was leaving the coastal town of Teignmouth on account of the sea air was not beneficial to his wife's health, the removal of several cabinets to their new address would be very difficult. Dale invited Blomer to meet him at the coastal town of Charmouth in Dorset to look for Maculinea arion but in a letter dated 2 June 1830, Blomer declined. Dr Beverley Morris had taken one specimen of M. arion at Charmouth the previous year, but Dale was unsuccessful in his search for the butterfly, going afterwards to Teignmouth to see Blomer.
By September 1830 Blomer and his family were residing at Clifton in Bristol. At the start of the winter of 1830, Blomer had started pupa digging with a trowel, this method of examining the grass and earth around the base of trees had been first mentioned in 1819 by George Samouelle (1819) in the Entomologist's Useful Compendium, a volume that certainly lived up to its name. In November Blomer had dug five hundred pupae and by January 1831 he had a thousand, on one day that month he had found one hundred and seventy pupae in Lord de Clifford's Park. In a letter to Dale dated 22 January 1831 he said that an assistant of Richard Weaver, the professional collector from Birmingham had visited Bristol, selling insects and birds but unfortunately he had missed him. Blomer wrote just three articles regarding entomology, his first appeared in Loudon's Magazine of Natural History and Journal of Zoology in 1831, regarding habits of three species moths that he had found in Pembrokeshire.
The Blomer's Rivulet Venusia blomeri.
Curtis (1832) wrote of a newly discovered Geometer moth which at Dale's suggestion had named Melanippe Blomeri " Mr Dale informs me that Captain Blomer bred a specimen of this nondescript in the autumn of 1830. For my specimen I am indebted to my friend Mr Wailes who took several at Castle Eden Dene." J.C. Dale was known to be a meticulous recorder, however there is a letter dated 5 April 1832 in which Blomer would seem to give a different account of its capture of V. blomeri, writing " I have sent you a moth I believe of the Geometer tribe which I hope will prove to be a unique new species if not genus, it is No 1 in the box. I procured it from the foreman belonging to Mr Miller the florist and seed man who captured it in their extensive gardens last summer I shall anxiously expect your reply to this to know if No 1 proves a great prize." Dale wrote underneath "Melanippe Blomeri Curtis will figure it". Blomer's capture of V. blomeri would seem to have been in the summer of 1831 at John Miller's Durdham Down Nursery in Clifton, Bristol. V. blomeri is regarded as a scarce species that occurs in woodland sporadically throughout England and Wales, where the larva feed on wych elm Ulmus glabra.
Venusia blomeri. Somerset. Dale coll, OUMNH
Withybush, 1831.
During 1831 Blomer stayed at Withybush, Pembrokeshire between April and early August. The weather was fine and Blomer was enjoying the collecting season, especially in the damp meadows of the Spittal Valley. He recorded in his journal that Melitaea artemis Denis & Schiffermüller, 1775, a synonym of Euphydryas aurinia Rottemburg, 1775 was common there, he took an extreme female aberration that was figured by Dale in 1833, in the Magazine of Natural History and Journal of Zoology. On June 7 he captured two specimens of what he recorded in his journal as Diasemia litterata Scopoli, 1763, a synonym of Diasemia reticularis Linnaeus, 1761, a scarce immigrant moth of the Crambidae family, which may have been a transitory resident in Britain during the 19th Century. On 14 June he took a fine example of the beautiful green moth Bena bicolorana of the Nolidae family and in the Spittal Valley on 17 June he found a colony of the striking Scarlet Tiger moth Callimorpha dominula and captured several of the noctuid Plusia festucae.
Euphydryas aurinia aberration. Withybush, Pembrokeshire, 1831, Blomer. Dale coll, OUMNH.
Diasemia reticularis. Devon, Dale coll, OUMNH.
Northern England and Scotland 1831.
At the end of their stay at Withybush, Blomer and his wife visited northern England and Scotland. Although it was getting late in the season he hoped to do some collecting, he would combine his hobby with sightseeing. He had made arrangements to visit fellow entomologists to exchange specimens and to examine museum collections. He left Milford Haven on 6 August 1831 by steam ship for Liverpool. The following day they travelled on the Liverpool to Manchester Railway which had opened the previous year. Blomer was most impressed that the thirty-two miles were covered in only one and half hours. In Manchester he visited the museum to see the bird and insect collections. On 11 August he left Liverpool arriving at Douglas in the Isle of Man, where he went mothing at night, capturing the following day 2 specimens of the Geometrid Coenotephria salicata that Dale and Curtis had discovered as new to Britain during their 1825 tour of Scotland. Between 20 & 22 August he was able to do some collecting at Ramsey at the northern end of the Island but found very little. On the 23 August they left Ramsey aboard the Glasgow steam ship, arriving in Greenock. They visited Loch Lomond on the 25 August travelling to the foot of Ben Lomond which they then ascended, finding very little in the way of insects, Blomer turning stones on the summit and collecting a few beetles. By the 29 August they were in Edinburgh and on 3 September they were back in England at Newcastle, visiting the entomologist and Barrister George Wailes (1802- 1882), who Blomer had previously exchanged insects with by post. Wailes took them on a tour of the Newcastle Museum to see the collections of birds and their eggs and on the 7 September they went collecting together. Blomer and his wife went to York on 10 September where they went to see the dealer Chapman to exchange insects with him and then on the 12 of that month they called on the dealer and professional collector Richard Weaver in Birmingham, Blomer exchanged and bought some insects, but thought him abominably dear. Afterwards they stayed at Pershore in Worcestershire where on the 15 September Blomer took Polygonia c-album, which at that time was considered to be a rather scarce butterfly.
The Liverpool to Manchester Railway opened on the 15 September 1830. Painting by A.B. Clayton. A year later Blomer and his wife Elizabeth travelled on the railway to visit the Manchester Museum.
The Bristol Riots November 1831.
The Bristol riots was the culmination of a struggle for democratic rights, only 6,000 people in Bristol had the vote out of a population of 104,000. After the House of Lords rejected the second Reform Bill, rioting broke out in Bristol that was centered on Queen's Square, many buildings were looted and burned. Work on the Clifton Suspension Bridge was halted and Isambard Kingdom Brunel, its architect, the famous English mechanical and civil engineer was sworn in as a special constable. When Blomer arrived back from his northern tour he stayed at the Clifton Hotel, where he was appointed to lead a division of special constables which may have included Brunel. In a letter dated 18 November 1831 Blomer wrote to Dale " When your letter arrived we had just returned from the north and the Bristol riots occurring directly after which put to flight all my entomological ideas which prevented me my writing before indeed I did not unpack my boxes until the other day, having already made a start at the Clifton Hotel, but the mob destroyed the lodge next door to it. One division of sworn constables was put under my command and we had been out most nights." When the dragoons arrived in Bristol its commander a Lieutenant-Colonel Brereton was ordered to open fire on the rioters in Queen's Square but initially refused, but later he led a sabre charge which resulted in a massacre, how many people actually died varies according to different sources. Brereton refusal to carried out his orders initially led to his court martial. He committed suicide by shooting himself before the trial had ended.
In a letter dated 21 January 1832, Blomer wrote to Dale that an entomological friend had called on him to look at his collection and on seeing his aberration of Melitaea artemis (Euphydryas aurinia) that he had taken in Pembrokeshire the previous summer had stated that he thought it was not only new species but belonged to genus! Blomer thought it a variety of artemis as he had caught flying with that species, Dale also thought it was a variety of artemis. Blomer wrote in a letter dated 5 February 1832 that the entomologist who called on him and said he had a new butterfly was none other than the very wealthy Reverend Frederick William Hope (1797 – 1862), he said he was most unimpressed by Hope's determination, whose main interest was the Coleoptera. Blomer had also made the acquaintance of the Bristol collector George Waring who had invented a useful pair of pliers that bent pins exactly the right shape to hold the legs of Coleoptera and insects species in place while they were being mounted, which was in widespread use by entomologists.
Bridgend 1832.
Blomer and his family left Bristol in April 1832 by the steam Ferry to Newport in South Wales, where they took the mail coach to Bridgend, Glamorganshire, here they were going to spend the summer in a cottage. The unspoiled valleys and the extensive coastal sand dunes of this area would prove a rich collecting ground. Here Blomer met with one of our most enigmatic butterflies, Aporia crataegi that was once found in Britain and which has long been extinct. There was a good population of A. crataegi in the Bridgend area. On 18 May Blomer wrote in his diary " I met a caterpillar fastened with a silken web around its body to a small branch preparing to transform into a pupa, it was the larva of Aporia crataegi, on examining further I found a pupa beautifully marked attached to a branch, on searching the scrubby hawthorn around I found about twenty larvae in different stages of growth". He recorded in his journal for 21 May that the locality where he found the larva of A. crataegi was in the Ogmore River valley, on 2 June he collected his first adult. While out collecting with his son Samuel on the 19 June they encountered 15 adults of A. crataegi and beating the sloe bushes they collected 40 larvae of the local hairstreak Thecla betulae that were dislodged onto his hand held sheet. During two further visits, they obtained many more larva of T. betulae, a butterfly that has long been extinct in Glamorganshire but there are strong colonies further west in Wales. There was a general decline in Britain of A. crataegi in the 19th century, with Allan (1948) stating that it had gone from Glamorganshire by 1870, but it may have disappeared even earlier with Evan John of Llantrisant recording that he had not seen it for many years in that county (Newman, 1871).
Aporia crataegi. Bridgend, Glamorganshire, Blomer 1831. Dale collection, OUMNH.
Blomer often visited the coastal sandhills or sand dunes, lying the south of Bridgend, he took his rake there on 30 May and found 20 larvae of A. praecox. On the 19 June Blomer visited the sand dunes of Merthyr Mawr behind Newton Bay, finding several larvae of Lasiocampa trifolii, a local coastal moth of the Lasiocampidae family. On the way to the sand dunes on the 23 June to look for more larva of L. trifolii, in which he was successful, he found a colony of E. aurinia in a marshy field and took several of the hornet mimicking S. bembeciformis on the trunks of poplars. He and his son Samuel found some good beetles on 20 June around Kenfig pool, which is set among extensive sand dunes near Porthcrawl. In the Ogmore valley leading down to the sea Blomer met with Polyommatus (Lysandra) coridon in plenty, a butterfly that has long been absent in Wales, he also saw two females of T. betulae.
In a long letter written to Dale on the 31 October 1832 from Bridgend, Blomer was sending a box to him of some insects he had collected, and was as usual, still trying to complete his numbers of Curtis' British Entomology, he often exchanged insects for the different parts that he needed. Blomer certainly seemed starved of entomological news, hoping for a copy of Dale's journal detailing his collecting season for 1832 writing " When you return my box I trust you will gratify me with a relation of the captures in entomology and a copy of your journal for last season, this I am sure you will do when I tell you that I have neither conversed nor written to any naturalists for the last six months, it has always been my ill luck to be residing where no other person of the same pursuit is to be found which makes me so discouraged that I am ready to give it up." However, Blomer's interest remained, in a letter dated 10 January 1833 from Bristol he thanked Dale for the pair of Hesperia (Hymelicus) acteon, who had added it to the British list when he had discovered the butterfly the previous August at Lulworth Cove, Dorset. Blomer was leaving Bristol to take lodgings at Cheltenham in Gloucestershire, where in 1833 he subscribed to the first popular journal devoted to entomology in Britain, The Entomological Magazine, which was first issued by the Entomological Club that year. In the first volume of the Entomological Magazine (1834) Blomer's article entitled " Insects Captured at Bridgend, Glamorganshire" was published and a second article appeared in volume two (1834) regarding the finding of a lava in August 1832 of the very rare immigrant hawk- moth Daphnis nerii at Teignmouth, Devon in a Mrs Mitchell's garden that had been communicated to him by his friend Mrs Tayleur. Unfortunately the larva of D. nerii died but not before Mrs Tayleur had made a beautiful drawing of it which she had sent to Blomer. Dale later sent Mrs Tayleur drawing of D. nerii to Curtis who used it to figure the larva with the adult on plate 626 in British Entomology (1837).
London, Winter 1833-1834.
Blomer and his wife spent the winter of 1833-34 residing in London. On the 27 November 1833 in a letter to Dale he wrote " I have been spending two delightful hours with your friend Mr Curtis in looking over his cabinets. I look forward to enjoying a delightful entomological winter. I have become a member of the Entomological Society, at the last meeting there were about sixty members present, the venerable and father of British entomology Mr Kirby was president. Mr Spence and his two sons were there. I hope you will become a member, I am sorry Mr Curtis has declined. I endured to persuade him to do so this morning, if only in procuring a point of view as to the sale of his work but without effort. I do most deeply regret there is such an illiberal feeling existing amongst the entomologists. I would gladly see this man united, as for myself I am determined to stay clear of all parties and try to be friends with all." The Entomological Society of London had been formed in May 1833, its first president was the Keeper of the Department of Zoology at the British Museum J.G. Chidren. James Francis Stephens occupied the chair at its first meeting, when The Reverend William Kirby was elected a Honary life President. J.F. Stephen was one of the leading lights of the society and an original member, becoming President in 1837-1838, at the time of his death in 1852 he was Vice-President. In 1827 Stephens had commenced the publication of Illustrations of British Entomology, which was in direct competition with John Curtis' British Entomology, this had reduced the sales of the latter work, upsetting Curtis, and there started a bitter feud between the two men that divided the entomological community into two parties as reported by Blomer in his letter to Dale. Such was the bitterness of the feud, Curtis did not join the Entomological Society of London until 1851, it is said that before Stephens died there was a reconciliation between the two men (Douglas, 1861). Curtis became president of the Entomological Society of London in 1855. Dale was on very friendly terms with Curtis, and they corresponded from at least 1819 but his correspondence with Stephens abruptly ended in 1827, the year his Illustrations appeared. Dale never did join the Entomological Society, but it had less to do with the feud between Curtis and Stephens and more to do with that he rarely visited London, preferring to explore the countryside of his own parish Glanvilles Wootton with the occasional collecting excursions further afield. In London Blomer met William Edward Shuckard who was interested in Colepertra and Hymenoptera, later producing the book The British Coleoptera delineated, consisting of figures of all the genera of British beetles (1840). Blomer also met John Walton a coleopterist from Islington, London and his friend George Wailes from Newcastle.
The New Forest. 1834.
The New Forest of Hampshire with its extensive woodlands and heathland is still very rich in insects, but 184 years ago when Blomer went there for four months in 1834, it was far richer, he was able to meet with a number of different species of insects that have vanished from the area. The planting of dense stands of conifers, the removal of brambles an important nectar for insects and other vegetation from the woodland rides, intense grazing and human pressure, all combined to the demise of a number of insect species from the Forest, some of which were found nowhere else and became extinct in Britain.
Blomer arrived in Lyndhurst in early April where he spent a fortnight, first staying at the Crown Inn that had been recommended by Dale, but Blomer thought the price of three shillings a night was exorbitant even though servants were included. The following day he and his wife went to stay at the Swan Inn on the outskirts of the village on the Christchurch Road. On 4 April he walked along the road to Brockenhurst where he saw two N. polychloros and another the next day, that were in a wasted condition having emerged from their winter hibernation. On the heath near Lyndhurst on 8 April he encountered two pairs of the Horned Minotaur Beetle Typhaeus typhoeus of the Geotrupidae family and a splendid specimen of the large and very rare Hairy Rove Beetle Emus Hirtus from the Staphylinidae family. Blomer later gave the specimen of E. Hirtus to Curtis who figured it in British Entomology (1835) on plate 534, writing " This is considered a rare insect in Britain, although few good cabinets are without it : for the specimen figured I am indebted to Capt Blomer, who found it in Cow-dung in the New Forest the 8th of April." Dale had previously added E. Hirtus to the British list when he found it on Parley Heath, Dorset on 16 May 1821. This is now one of Britain's rarest beetles, having not been seen in the New Forest for many years, where there a still large number of grazing cattle, however, veterinary products given to those livestock killed the eggs and the larva of the beetle when they contaminated the fresh cow dung, which the beetle only uses. A population is still to be found in the East Kent Marshes, where however the beetle is very rarely seen.
On 11 April Blomer left Lyndhurst for Brockenhurst fours miles to the south, here he and his wife took lodgings with a Mrs Reynolds in a comfortable cottage on the outskirts of the village. The following day they had to stay indoors because of hail and snow storms, although it was early spring, Blomer described it in his diary as the coldest day of the winter. Later in April, the weather improved and turned fine. On the 23 April between Lyndhurst and Brockenhurst in decayed branches of oaks Blomer found a number of species of beetles including 6 of the scarce red Elater beetle Ampedus sanguineus (Linnaeus, 1758). A. sanguineus has not been recorded from the New Forest for many years and is considered to be extinct in Britain.
One of Blomer's favourite hunting places in the New Forest was between Lyndhurst and Brockenhurst, that he records in his diary as Ramblea Inclosure near Ramblea Lodge, both fictitious names for Ramnor Inclosure. The lodge in Ramnor Inclosure later becoming the home of the New Forest keeper and dealer in insects, Charles Gulliver (Morley,1941). The reasons for keeping the actual locality a secret, although it was certainly known to a few collectors, was because it was a locality for Cicadetta montana, a much desired insect from the order Hemiptera that is also now unfortunately extinct in Britain. On 12 May Blomer records in his diary he found at Ramblea a specimen of the spectacular hoverfly Caliprobola speciosa that was discovered in the forest by Daniel Bydder, a Spitalfield Weaver from London who was sent to the Forest in 1812 on account of his expertise as a collector by a wealthy patron, Simon Wilkin of Norwich. During his visit to the Forest Bydder also added the cicada C. montana to the British list. On 20 May at Ramblea Blomer caught Leptidea sinapis and Hamearis lucina that were common in the woods, sadly both have vanished from today's Forest, the former was gone before the end of the 19th century (Goater, 1974), which is a good indication that even by time there were appreciable changes in woodland management. In Britain L. sinapis is very susceptible to any changes of its woodland habitat, where it needs open sunny rich rides that also have some shade cover, where the female likes to lay there eggs on various vetches of the Fabaceae family. Visiting Ramblea on the 15 May Blomer recorded that he captured the local ground beetle Calosoma inquisitor Linnaeus, 1758 that frequents oak woods.
Blomer went to Ramblea on 16 May, writing in his diary " I had the good fortune to beat a Cicada anglica out of a large whitethorn bush onto my sheet and one Microdon apiformis." Cicada anglica Samouelle (1819) is a synonym of Cicadetta montana Scopoli, 1772. The Diptera Microdon apiformis De Geer, 1776 of the Syrphidae family is synonym of Microdon mutabilis Linnaeus, 1758, which in 2002 was split into two species, the other being Microdon myrmicae which is the species found in the New Forest, another Bydder discovery. In Britain M. mutabilis occurs on the northern limestone hills. On 21 May Blomer records he was in Ramblea where he took another cicada and here he met Richard Weaver, who had taken 7 specimens of the cicada and found two cases of the pupa on ferns, from which the adults had recently emerged. On the 21 May he again met with Weaver at the cicada grounds, the professional collector could get as much as £10 for a single specimen (£1140 in today's money) a considerable amount at that time for a single insect specimen. On 22 May Blomer wrote to Dale that he looked forward to his coming, mentioning both his and Weaver's captures of the rare cicada, and that Weaver " has every advantage over me, he knows the locality of very rare insects in this neighbourhood. Weaver has also taken Cleora cinctaria but for the life of me I cannot meet with it". However, in his diary for 23 May he records he took a specimen of the Geometer C. cinctaria, a species that had been added to the British list when Dale had found it at Brockenhurst on 2 June 1823.
Cicadetta montana. Brockenhurst. Dale coll, OUMNH.
On the 24 May in Mr Morant's plantation in Brockenhurst Park, Blomer took a specimen of Melitaea cinxia, a butterfly that was once more widespread in Britain, but today is confined to the Isle of Wight. Dale arrived on 27 May to stay with Blomer, who wrote in his diary "after breakfast Mr Dale and I went to the cicada ground near Ramblea Lodge and found one each". Blomer also records capturing the hoverflies Milesia (Caliprobola) speciosa and Microdon apiformis (M. myrmicae). Blomers records of C. speciosa are of interest as the Dipterist George Henry Verrall (1901) states that he did not know of other records of this hoverfly after Curtis took it near Brockenhurst in 1824, (he was accompanied by Dale) until 1888, when it was taken in the same neighbourhood. On 29 May Blomer wrote in his journal that he and Dale met others collectors in the forest " We went to breakfast with the Reverend G. T. Rudd of Darlington and Mr T. Meynell at Lyndhurst, went towards Decoy Pond and returned to the cicada ground, and saw one cicada." George Thomas Rudd (c.1795 1847) was especially interested in Coleoptera, at the time of his visit to the New Forest he was the curate of Sockburn, North Yorkshire near Darlington, his collection is now in the Yorkshire Museum at York. On 30 May Blomer borrowed Dale's horse and went to Lyndhurst for shoulder of mutton, stopping on the way to do a little collecting taking 3 C. speciosa. At Brockenhurst Dale was busy collecting in the cottage garden capturing 12 of the day-flying Sphingid Hemaris fuciformis that were hovering over flowers in the garden. The 2 June turned out to be very hot, Dale and Blomer went to the cicada ground to look for the Buprestis beetle Anthaxia nitidula that Dale and Curtis had added to the British list when they collected it in New Forest in 1824, they were unsuccessful in their search. Blomer took a cicada and 1 A. crataegi, they returned to the cottage exhausted by the heat. On 3 June Dale left the New Forest for Christchurch, collecting the next day at the sandy coastal cliffs of Mount Misery.
On 5 June Blomer went to Mr Morant's plantation in Brockenhurst Park, he hoped to secure further specimens of M. cinxia but did not see any, it is possible that his specimen taken there earlier was a stray from a colony elsewhere. Although Blomer uses the word plantation, the Morants were the local landowners and it is probable that the woodland here was very old, as that day, H. lucina and B. selene were common along the rides, he also took A. crataegi a butterfly that was quite common in the New Forest but died out there around 1880 (Allan, 1948). According to Allan, those A. crataegi taken in the New Forest was the last indigenous specimens to be seen in Britain. Although it later turned up in Kent, Allan, 1948 provides evidence that it was extinct in that county by the 1870s and regards the later population found there due to releases by dealers and collectors, as this is not a migratory butterfly. Whatever its origins, the Kentish population also became extinct, the reasons Allan suggests were climatic, as later reintroduction attempts all failed. Visiting the cicada ground on 6 June Blomer took one C. montana and saw three. He captured two A. crataegi there on 20 June. On 21 June he collected a full fed larva of N. polychloros on the village elms. He went collecting at Mr Morant's plantation with his son Samuel on 1 July and captured several of the Geometer Scopula ornata, this species has much declined in Britain and is now only regularly found in a few localities on the chalk grassland of the North Downs in south-east England. In a letter to Dale dated 29 June Blomer thanked him for his beautiful present, two baskets of vegetables that he had sent from Blandford, he mentioned after the New Forest he would be going to the Isle of Wight. The day after Dale had left the Forest, on Sunday 5 June, Blomer recorded that Rudd arrived to take tea, and they went collecting together, the Yorkshire collector taking a very rare beetle, Elater castaneus from decayed wood that was "doubtfully British" which only the Reverend Hope had collected before. This scarce beetle is certainly native to Britain, and is now placed in the genus Anostirus. On 3 July Blomer and his family left Brockenhurst for Lymington, taking the steam ferry to the coastal town of Southsea near Portsmouth to stay with an old comrade Colonel Stevens. On 10 July Blomer took specimens of the Horned Dung Beetle Copris lunaris, in a sandy field among horse dung, sadly this Scarab beetle was last seen in Britain in 1974, and is now extinct (Mann, Lane, 2016).
Copris lunaris. Dale coll, OUMNH.
Isle of Wight 1834-1835.
Blomer in a letter dated 6 August 1834 wrote to Dale that he proposed to spend a month or two on the Isle of Wight, he then planned to visit his friend at Worcester. Blomer arrived at the Isle of Wight with his family on 7 August 1834, later renting Mail Hill Cottage at Carisbrooke, a village a mile west of the town of Newport in the centre of the island. Carisbrooke is well known for its castle that is built on a chalk hill, to the north is Parkhurst Forest. On 13 August Blomer took a specimen of the pale female form helice of Colias croceus on the outer ditch of Carisbrooke Castle and found Polyommatus (Lysandra) bellargus and Polyommatus (Lysandra) coridon in profusion. On 15 August he captured another C. croceus f. helice and the following day while hunting insects of the margins of Parkhurst Forest, he captured further specimens of that butterfly. At Carisbrooke throughout September and November Blomer found nests of the larvae of M. cinxia, some of them 15 yards from his cottage door on a bank. On the 31 October he went beating for larvae in Parkhurst Forest. The last adult butterfly he saw that year, 1834 was Vanessa io on the 3 November.
On January 22 1835 Blomer wrote to Dale that he must be surprised that he was still in the Isle of Wight, he had been to London but Curtis and most of his entomological friends were out of town. He had left a box of insects at Curtis lodgings in the care of his landlady, which included the specimen of E. Hirtus that he had taken in the New Forest during April. Blomer had met Shuckard and gave him a box of bees to look over and then return. He mentioned to Dale he had several broods of M. cinxia and that he hoped to visit Brockenhurst again in May, and wondered would Dale be able to meet him there. Blomer was looking forward to receiving the perfect pair of M. arion that Dale had promised to send to him. Blomer informed Dale that he had been confined to his bed for the last five weeks, from a severe sprain of his knee, which was much inflamed, he hoped that he would regain the use of his leg in the spring. A letter dated 16 April 1835 from Carisbrooke was the last that Blomer sent to Dale, he was still confined to his bed and to the sofa and was unable to walk. He had received little entomological news and said that Shuckard has neglected him, he had 70 of Blomer's bee specimens and had not written to him or returned them as promised. Blomer thought that the Isle of Wight was excellent locality for the bee tribes. He mentioned in his letter he had sent for his other son, young Linnaeus on account of his illness. He ended his letter, by saying his cottage is situated in the heart of the habitat of Melitaea cinxia.
Blomer did not recover from his illness and died on 11 May 1835 and was buried at St Mary's Church, Carisbrooke, he was 52 years old. Dale saw the news of his friends death in a newspaper but Blomer's wife Elizabeth wrote to Dale on 6 June 1835 of her loss. She hoped that Dale would help her to dispose by sale of her husbands cabinets which was his wish. She mentioned that the M. cinxia that he collected the previous autumn started to emerge later that May
Blomer's collection.
Dale visited Elizabeth Blomer at Carisbrooke in August 1835 to make an inventory of her husbands collections that were kept in three cabinets containing 3785 specimens. The Lepidoptera collection was in a 22 drawer cabinet that held a short series, usually four of each species with 2536 specimens, which Dale purchased together with 679 specimens of bees, he payed Elizabeth Blomer £53. 11s. (in today's money £6519). Dale's inventory of Blomer's British Lepidoptera collection stated that it consisted of 3 drawers of butterflies, 1 drawer with a few butterflies, the rest macro moths, 15 drawers of macro moths, 2 drawers of micro moths and one drawer of foreign butterflies. Dale later sold Blomer's cabinet in 1839 with most of its specimens to the Reverend J. Streatfield for £35 who presented it to the newly opened Margate Literary and Scientific Institution that became bankrupt and closed in 1866. The whereabouts of Blomer's collection is now unknown. Blomer's Coleoptera was also listed by Dale, but he makes no mention of purchasing them.
References.
Allan, P.B.M., 1948 Moths and Memories. Watkins and Doncaster.
Blomer, C., 1826-1835. Letters to J.C. Dale. Dale Archive. Oxford University Museum of Natural History.
Blomer, C., Entomological Diary 1820-1834. Dale Archive. Oxford University Museum of Natural History. (with many notes by J.C. Dale)
Blomer, C., 1829 Natural History in English Counties, Devon. The Dartford Warbler and other Birds. Magazine of Natural History and Journal of Zoology 2 : 278.
Blomer, C., 1831 Habitat of the larva, pupa, and fly of Aegeria crabroniformis, Saturnia Pavonia minor, Callimorpha dominula. Magazine of Natural history and Journal of Zoology. 4 : 446-447.
Blomer, C., 1834 Insects captured at Brigdend, Glamorganshire. Entomological Magazine 1: 316-317.
Blomer, C., 1834 Capture of Sphinx Nerii. Entomological Magazine 2: 116-117.
Broadway, J. . Xmera. Explorations into the History of Plants, Gardens & Gardeners, Nurseries & Nurserymen in England. Durdham Down Nursery, Bristol Online Website, accessed November 4, 2018.
Brown S.C.S., 1983 The Dale Letters. Unpublished Manuscript given to the Hope Department of Entomology, Oxford University Museum of Natural History.
Curtis, J., 1824-40 British Entomology being illustrations and descriptions of the genera of insects found in Great Britain and Ireland: containing coloured figures from nature of the most rare and beautiful species, and in many instances of the plants upon which they are found. London.
Dale, J.C., 1830 Notice of the capture of Vanessa Huntera for the first time in Britain, with a catalogue of rare insects captured. Magazine of Natural History and Journal of Zoology 3: 332-334.
Dale, J.C., 1833 Retrospective Notices, by J.C. Dale, Esq, on insects, in relation to remarks by Mr Bree, Mr Westwood, and others. Magazine of Natural history and Journal of Zoology. 6: 377-378.
Douglas, J.W., 1861 Obituary John Curtis. The Proceedings of of the Entomological Society of London in the Transactions of the Entomological Society of London 1: 122-125.
Kloet, G.S., Hincks, W. D., 1972 A Check List of the British Insects Part 2 : Lepidoptera, Second Edition. Royal Entomological Society of London.
Goater B., 1974 The Butterflies and Moths of Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. E. W. Classy.
Mann, D.J. Lane, S.A., 2016. A review of the status of the beetles of Great Britain. The stag beetles, dor beetles, dung beetles, chafers and their allies - Lucanidae, Geotrupidae, Trogidae and Scarabaeidae. Natural England Commissioned Report, Species Status No.31. Online pdf, accessed November 2018.
Morley, C. (1941) The History of Cicadetta montana Scop in Britain, 1812-1940. The Entomologist’s Monthly Magazine 921-922 : 41-56.
Neave, S.A., 1833 The History of the Entomological Society of London 1833-1933. London.
Newman, E., 1871 Illustrated Natural History of British Butterflies and Moths. London, William Glaisher.
Raddon, W., 1834 Notes on Deilephila euphorbiae. Entomological Magazine 2: 535-536.
Samouelle , G., 1819 Entomologist's Useful Compendium. London.
Thomas, J. Lewington R., 2010 Butterflies of Britain and Ireland, second edition. British Wildlife Publishing.
Verrall, G.H., 1901 British Flies Syrphidae. Volume 8. Reprined 1969, E.W. Classey.
Waring, P. Townsend, M. Lewington R., 2017 Field Guide to the Moths of Great Britain and Ireland, third Edition. Bloomsbury.
Wilkin, S.,1835 Sir Thomas Browne’s Work; Including his Life and Correspondence. Volume 3 Footnote: 92-93. William Pickering, London.
Captain Charles Blomer (1783-1835) is perhaps best known among British Lepidopterists for capturing the first Vanessa virginiensis Drury, 1773 in Britain and having a moth named after him, the Blomer's Rivulet Venusia blomeri Curtis, 1832. Blomer was the first entomologist to record insects in a number of areas of Wales and England. Many species that he recorded from those localities are now absent, and some of them are extinct in Britain. Very little has been previously published about this industrious 19th century entomologist.
Nothing seems to have been recorded about Blomer's early life, he had a distinguished military career, serving in the army during the Napoleonic wars. In 1795 he joined the 20th East Devonshire Regiment of Foot as an ensign, by 1801 he was a lieutenant in the 31st Huntingdonshire Regiment of Foot. In 1801 he served in Egypt under Ralph Abercromby, where he was wounded, being awarded a pension of £100. By 1807 he was promoted to Captain and with the 31st foot fought in the Peninsular Wars between April-July 1809 and September 1811 - April 1814. In 1813 he was present at the battles of Vitoria, Pyrenees, Nivelle and Nive. By 1815 Blomer was on half pay with the 36th Herefordshire Regiment of Foot. In 1817 he married Elizabeth Phelps Martin of Withybush House in Pembrokeshire, Wales. There are no known portraits of Blomer.
Blomer's Diary and Letter's to James Charles Dale.
The main source of information used in this article was found in the Dale archives held by the Library of Entomology at the Oxford University of Natural History. James Charles Dale (1791 – 1872) the squire of Glanvilles Wootton in Dorset corresponded with many fellow entomologists, their letters and his journals and diaries are a unique collection covering much of the 19th century, containing much invaluable entomological and sociological information.
Blomer wrote 52 letters to Dale between 1826 & 1834. The letters detail the insects Blomer captured and those that he exchanged with Dale, together with other significant historical information regarding this period of early British entomology. Blomer was on friendly terms with Dale, they exchanged insects, and they met on several occasions. They collected together at Teignmouth, Devon and in the New Forest, Hampshire. After Blomer's death Dale bought one of Blomer's insect cabinets and came into the possession of his entomological diary, which he annotated, as he also did to his letters. Blomer's diary commences in 1820 at Bideford, North Devon, but for this year there only a few entries for July, two previous double sided pages having been torn out and are missing. For 1821 there are only entries from Bideford between March and May ; for 1822 there are entries for April to July that he made while visiting his wife's family at Withybush, Pembrokeshire and during a vacation at Ilfracombe, Devon in August; from 1823 onward there are comprehensive insect records chiefly from Bideford North Devon, Teignmouth South Devon, Withybush Pembrokeshire, Bridgend Glamorganshire, The Forest of Dean Gloucestershire, the New Forest and the Isle of Wight in Hampshire. Blomer certainly seems to have enjoyed exploring different areas, residing at various times, not only those places listed above but also at Bristol, Swansea, Cheltenham, Chepstow and London. He and his wife also toured northern England and southern Scotland in 1831.
Bideford, Devon.
By 1820 Blomer and his wife Elizabeth were residing at Bideford, a historic port on the River Torridge in North Devon in south-west England. Blomer collected all insects orders but was particularly keen on the Lepidoptera. In this area he collected insects at the extensive coastal sand dunes of Appledore and Braunton Burrows and in the wooded river valleys of the Torridge and Yeo. One of the main difficulties of collecting insects during this period was identifying your captures, as there was very little available literature on the subject. In a letter to Dale dated 2 January 1826 Blomer mentioned his entomological literature consisted of the Entomologist's Useful Compendium by George Samouelle, published in 1819, and parts of John Curtis' British Entomology that had began to appear in 1824, the other earlier works being too expensive. Blomer was also keen on ornithology, although at that period it either meant making a collection of their eggs or shooting the adult birds for taxidermy, he preferred the former. He had the pioneering Ornithological Dictionary (1802) by George Montagu (1753 –1815) who like himself had been an English Army officer.
The only entomologist Blomer had met at Bideford was the engraver William Raddon who had looked over the insect specimens in his cabinet for two hours, but was only able to name a few of them. Dale kindly agreed to identify Blomer's new insects and he also sent insects for identification to James Francis Stephens and John Curtis, both distinguished entomologists living in London. When Blomer sent insects to Dale at Glanvilles Wootton he asked in his letters that if he saw anything new, to pass it on to Curtis that he might able publish and illustrate it in British Entomology. Raddon had resided at Instow, a hamlet a few miles to the north of Bideford by the River Torridge. Nearby on the sand dunes of Appledore and Braunton Burrows between 1806 & 1819 Raddon claimed to have found numerous larva of the rare immigrant Spruge Hawk Moth Hyles euphorbiae feeding on Sea Spurge Euphorbia paralias, which resulted in a number of specimens being sold to collectors. (Raddon, 1834, Allan,1943). Blomer had visited Braunton Burrows previously but on the 28 & 29 August 1824 he went to the sand dunes especially to search for the larva of H. euphorbiae but was unsuccessful, although examining privet bushes by the sea he was rewarded by 6 full grown larvae of Sphinx ligustri, Britain's largest resident moth. The following year on 8 August 1825 he searched Appledore Burrows for H. euphorbiae, again finding none, however he was fortunate he recorded in his journal to find five full grown larvae of the Death's Head Hawk-moth Acherontia atropos in a potato field, close to the village church. On 12 August of that year he again searched for Braunton Burrows for H. euphorbiae with the same results as previously.
In Ford Wood near Bideford on 28 May 1823 Blomer recorded in his diary that he caught a specimen of dictynna flying along a road. Melitaea dictynna Esper, 1778 is a synonym of Melitaea diamina Lang, 1789, a butterfly that is widespread in central and southern Europe but has not been recorded from Britain. There was some confusion as to the identity of species of Melitaea at this time, the British species was Melitaea athalia Rottemburg, 1775. Blomer also found M. athalia in June 1823 & 1824 above the Landcross Bridge by the River Yeo, where he recorded it flying with Boloria selene. M. athalia was once more widespread in England, but like many other British butterflies it suffered a widespread decline, as a consequence it is now only found in Devon in the Lydford Valley on the edge of Dartmoor, it also occurs in the neighbouring counties of Cornwall and Somerset with a disjunct population in Kent and Essex, in eastern England, having been reintroduced in the latter county. Previous to finding of the larvae of A. atropos at Appledore, on 21 August 1824, a woman brought Blomer five full grown larvae of this species that she had found in her garden at Bideford, the following day she brought him five more for which she was given two shillings, these duly pupated and produced some fine specimens. A. atropos is an immigrant species that is a much less frequent visitor to Britain today. (Waring, Townsend, 2017). On the 16 & 17 June 1825 Blomer obtained five larvae of Thecla betulae by beating the sloe bushes at Ottery St Mary in East Devon.
Blomer obtained many specimens of Lepidoptera and other insects by beating the trees and shrubs with a stick, holding out a hand held sheet (beating tray) or his upturned net to catch those larvae or adults that were dislodged. Blomer mentioned to Dale in a letter dated the 16 May 1826 that he had built a shed in his garden, covered the floor in a foot of sawdust and then sunk pots with foodplants and larvae, he then occasionally lightly watered the sawdust which was drawn up through the holes of the pots into the earth, not only did this keep the foodplant fresh but kept them at a marginal temperature, and damp earth was available to those that used this to pupate. He had much success with this method. His wife Elizabeth who Blomer always referred to in his letters to Dale as Mrs B was an accomplished artist and painted her husband's larva, making her drawings of them into a book, Dale was offered the loan of it for a month or so. Blomer also recorded how he dispatched his insects he writes " I have had a small tea kettle made, holding the head of the insect in the steam, the insect is dead in an instant, I even use this method with butterflies and moths. This method will even kill Sphix Atropos or any of the large bodied moths, I could kill them with a red hot needle in the thorax, a method recommended by Samouelle."
In one exchange of insects with Blomer during 1826 Dale sent him a pair of Cyaniris semiargus from the meadows of Glanvilles Wootton, a butterfly now extinct in Britain, Nymphalis polychloros, another butterfly that had vanished from this country, Erebia aethiops, collected by Dale on the Isle of Arran, Scotland during 1825 with Curtis and another Scottish butterfly Aricia artaxerxes collected the same year, together with a pair of the now extinct Lycaena dispar from fens of Whittlesea Mere. As travelling was so difficult in this period, exchanging insects was a very good way of building up your collection, and in this respect corresponding with a well travelled entomologist such as Dale and receiving such good specimens, Blomer was indeed fortunate, and he was certainly very pleased with his new acquisitions and he was obviously sending good things in return. In a letter dated April 1826 Blomer had told Dale he only had a pair of the beautiful green noctuid Moma alpium and one of them he had promised to Curtis. At this time Blomer's cabinet of Lepidoptera consisted of 18 drawers of British species and one of foreign, the latter were all obtained by exchange.
On a visit to the city of Exeter during April 1826 Blomer had gone to see the insect collection of the Zoologist William Elford Leach (1791-1836) formerly an Assistant Keeper in the Natural History Department of the British Museum, which he had presented to The Devon and Exeter Institution. Blomer observed that Leach's valuable collection of insects had been neglected and were covered in mould and many were destroyed through the attention of mites. Entomologists at that time generally used camphor blocks in their cabinet drawers to deter mites and dermestids. On 16 May 1826 Blomer wrote to Dale that he had also captured two of the scarce coastal moth Actebia praecox that he found resting on the sand dunes, this is one of our few Brirish noctuids with greenish coloured forewings.
Actebia praecox. Dale coll, OUMNH.
Teignmouth, Devon.
In the late summer of 1826 Blomer moved to the town of Teignmouth on the coast of South Devon. One of his favourite collecting grounds here was Little Hadon Heath situated on the hills above the town, which survives to this day as a nature reserve, he also had a varied coastline to explore, miles of sandstone sea cliffs with sandy bays which led to the extensive sand dunes of Dawlish Warren. On 15 September 1826 Blomer was descending from the heath into the valley, where he recorded in his diary he captured a Colias hyale, later he took a number of them at a cove by the sea. On 4 October 1827 he set off in the morning to the cove with his large folding net (clap net) where he caught a further six specimens of what he thought were C. hyale, which were flying with another immigrant butterfly Vanessa cardui. C. hyale was once a frequent visitor to this country, being rarely recorded here in recent years. (Thomas & Lewington, 2010). There seems to have been some confusion in Blomer's identification of his Colias specimens, they were almost certainly not C. hyale but Colias croceus. When Dale later purchased Blomer's cabinet containing the Lepidoptera, he made an inventory of all of its contents and there were no specimens of C. hyale listed, it did include a small series of C. croceus (listed by Dale as Colias edusa) that included two of the pale female form helice. The two form helice were taken later in the Isle of Wight. The scientific name C. edusa Fabricius, 1787 saw widespread usage in Britain in the 19th century, which is a synonym of Colias croceus Geoffroy, 1785. When Blomer recorded in his diary that he took the same yellow butterfly Colias hyale at Teignmouth on 1 August 1827, Dale later annotated it to C. edusa.
On 15 May 1827 Blomer wrote to Dale that he had been confined to his bed since 10 March due a bad case of Erysipelas but thankfully he had recovered and had been mothing at night and had caught the Noctuid Trichoplusia ni, an immigrant species that is only recorded here in small numbers each year. Blomer was going to London that May for a week to ten days, he was taking a box of insects with him as he hoped to meet Curtis and Stephens and examine their collections. Blomer caught two species of the clearwing moth Bembecia ichneumoniformis of the Sesiidae family on 2 June 1827 that apparently had only been recently added to the British list. On 18 June 1827 on the opposite side of the River Teign, crossing on the newly opened Shaldon Bridge, in a valley below the hamlet of Ringman he went beating for larvae, among his collections were 3 larvae of Thecla betulae and captured an adult of that butterfly flying along a hedgerow by the river on 5 August of that year. He beat a half grown lava of Nymphalis polychloros at Teignmouth on 1 July 1827 and in the Coombe valley running down from the hills into the town, he took an adult on the 26 July and on 7 August a fine pair on a steep bank flying around elm trees. After, a long decline N. polychloros disappeared from Britain around 1950. On 30 July 1827 he visited Bradley Wood at Newton Abbot, where he again took N. polychloros and captured the fritillaries Argynnis adippe and Argynnis adippe. Walking along the Dawlish road on 14 August 1827 Blomer found a fine specimen of the large immigrant hawk moth Agrius convolvuli, his good fortune continued the next day, by the new river bridge he took another specimen resting on stones. A red letter day came on 6 September 1827, with his wife Elizabeth he had crossed the River Teign by the bridge, Blomer writing in his diary " Walked with Elizabeth on the Ness Head at Shaldon, caught a very singular variety of H. janira or Meadow Brown of a cream colour with blotch of orange in the center of the forewings." Hipparchia janira Linnaeus, 1758 is a junior synonym of Maniola jurtina Linnaeus, 1758. In December 1827 Blomer wrote to Dale of his capture of the rare cream coloured aberration of M. jurtina and hoped it would be an inducement for Dale to visit him in the spring, as he was most disappointed that he was unable to visit him in the autumn. The extreme aberration of M. jurtina captured by Blomer is now in the Dale collection, and has the label, Blomer 1827, and an erroneous printed label Dartmoor placed at its side, that was probably added by C.W. Dale.
Maniola jurtina ab grisea-aurea Oberthur,1909. Teignmouth, Devon, 1827, C. Blomer. Dale coll, OUMNH.
J.C. Dale at Teignmouth.
Dale did not come to visit Blomer in the spring because of the poor weather and it had not much improved when Dale came on 20 May 1828, having caught the 8.30 mail coach from Sherborne to Exeter and then a 4pm coach from that City, arriving at Teignmouth at 7pm in the evening. Blomer was overjoyed to finally meet the entomologist. The next day after dinner with the collector Mr R. T. Abraham from Exeter they took their nets and went mothing at Little Haldon Heath, a couple of miles distant, for those species on the wing in the late evening and at dusk. On the 22 May they went to the sandhills of Dawlish Warren with Abraham and Blomer ever the enterprising entomologist took a garden rake, he had perfected a method of raking the sand for larvae and pupae and in this way he found 15 half grown larvae of Actebia praecox but, soon the rain set in, as it did when they had just reached Little Haldon Heath the next day. On the 24 May Dale left for Torquay.
The Royal Mail Coach from London to Exeter 1828, which Dale used to visit Blomer.
Pembrokshire 1828 and the capture of the first British specimen of Vanessa virginiensis.
On the 10 June 1828 Blomer and his family left Teignmouth to stay with his wife's mother at Withybush in Pembrokeshire, Wales. On 16 June Blomer visited the sandhills of Milford Haven where he took the noctuid Mythimna litoralis Curtis, 1827, this was only the second time it had been found in Britain, Dale having discovered it in 1824 on sandy cliffs of Mount Misery at Bournemouth in Hampshire that have long since been lost to coastal erosion. Among other lepidoptera he took several fine specimens of the wasp mimic Sesia bembeciformis of the family Sesiidae. It was a particularity wet summer and Blomer had a severe attack of rheumatism, as a result he was unable to go very far during August and September. He sent to Dale from his summer's collecting season in Pembrokshire 250 moths to be named.
During the July or August of 1828 Blomer took a small and dull specimen of what he thought was a diminutive specimen of Vanessa cardui, he later realized that it was different and thought it might be a new species, his specimen was later determined as Vanessa huntera Fabricius, 1775, a synonym of Vanessa virginiensis Drury, 1773. Blomer was at first unsure whether he took the specimen during his visits to Milford Haven or Withybush as he did not enter the capture in his diary, however he stated in a letter to Dale dated December 1829 that his wife recalled him showing her the specimen shortly after he captured at Withybush. Blomer was disappointed and upset with Curtis because he had refused to illustrate his specimen in his British Entomology. Curtis did not doubt the validity of his capture but since it was an American butterfly, and not a British one, would not include it in his work. The first published account of Blomer's capture of V. huntera (V. virginiensis) was by Dale (1830) in volume 3 of the Magazine of Natural History and Journal of Zoology. Blomer's specimen of V. virginiensis came into Dale's possession in 1829, after an exchange of a volume (12 parts) of Curtis' British Entomology. There have been around 20 records of V. virginiensis in Britain, all from the west coast of England and Wales, those immigrants may have arrived from the United States, however this species is present in the Canary Islands and migrants occasionally turn up in Portugal and Spain.
Vanessa virginiensis. Withybush, Pembrokshire, 1828, Blomer. Dale coll, OUMNH.
On 27 April 1829 Blomer visited Dale at Glanvilles Wootton to see his collection and was most impressed, he arrived at Sherborne by the mail coach at five in the afternoon, and Dale met him their in a gig. In the Magazine of Natural History and Journal of Zoology, (1829) Blomer had his first Natural History piece published regarding the Dartford Warbler and other birds of Devon. In a letter dated 10 March 1830 Blomer told Dale that he was leaving the coastal town of Teignmouth on account of the sea air was not beneficial to his wife's health, the removal of several cabinets to their new address would be very difficult. Dale invited Blomer to meet him at the coastal town of Charmouth in Dorset to look for Maculinea arion but in a letter dated 2 June 1830, Blomer declined. Dr Beverley Morris had taken one specimen of M. arion at Charmouth the previous year, but Dale was unsuccessful in his search for the butterfly, going afterwards to Teignmouth to see Blomer.
By September 1830 Blomer and his family were residing at Clifton in Bristol. At the start of the winter of 1830, Blomer had started pupa digging with a trowel, this method of examining the grass and earth around the base of trees had been first mentioned in 1819 by George Samouelle (1819) in the Entomologist's Useful Compendium, a volume that certainly lived up to its name. In November Blomer had dug five hundred pupae and by January 1831 he had a thousand, on one day that month he had found one hundred and seventy pupae in Lord de Clifford's Park. In a letter to Dale dated 22 January 1831 he said that an assistant of Richard Weaver, the professional collector from Birmingham had visited Bristol, selling insects and birds but unfortunately he had missed him. Blomer wrote just three articles regarding entomology, his first appeared in Loudon's Magazine of Natural History and Journal of Zoology in 1831, regarding habits of three species moths that he had found in Pembrokeshire.
The Blomer's Rivulet Venusia blomeri.
Curtis (1832) wrote of a newly discovered Geometer moth which at Dale's suggestion had named Melanippe Blomeri " Mr Dale informs me that Captain Blomer bred a specimen of this nondescript in the autumn of 1830. For my specimen I am indebted to my friend Mr Wailes who took several at Castle Eden Dene." J.C. Dale was known to be a meticulous recorder, however there is a letter dated 5 April 1832 in which Blomer would seem to give a different account of its capture of V. blomeri, writing " I have sent you a moth I believe of the Geometer tribe which I hope will prove to be a unique new species if not genus, it is No 1 in the box. I procured it from the foreman belonging to Mr Miller the florist and seed man who captured it in their extensive gardens last summer I shall anxiously expect your reply to this to know if No 1 proves a great prize." Dale wrote underneath "Melanippe Blomeri Curtis will figure it". Blomer's capture of V. blomeri would seem to have been in the summer of 1831 at John Miller's Durdham Down Nursery in Clifton, Bristol. V. blomeri is regarded as a scarce species that occurs in woodland sporadically throughout England and Wales, where the larva feed on wych elm Ulmus glabra.
Venusia blomeri. Somerset. Dale coll, OUMNH
Withybush, 1831.
During 1831 Blomer stayed at Withybush, Pembrokeshire between April and early August. The weather was fine and Blomer was enjoying the collecting season, especially in the damp meadows of the Spittal Valley. He recorded in his journal that Melitaea artemis Denis & Schiffermüller, 1775, a synonym of Euphydryas aurinia Rottemburg, 1775 was common there, he took an extreme female aberration that was figured by Dale in 1833, in the Magazine of Natural History and Journal of Zoology. On June 7 he captured two specimens of what he recorded in his journal as Diasemia litterata Scopoli, 1763, a synonym of Diasemia reticularis Linnaeus, 1761, a scarce immigrant moth of the Crambidae family, which may have been a transitory resident in Britain during the 19th Century. On 14 June he took a fine example of the beautiful green moth Bena bicolorana of the Nolidae family and in the Spittal Valley on 17 June he found a colony of the striking Scarlet Tiger moth Callimorpha dominula and captured several of the noctuid Plusia festucae.
Euphydryas aurinia aberration. Withybush, Pembrokeshire, 1831, Blomer. Dale coll, OUMNH.
Diasemia reticularis. Devon, Dale coll, OUMNH.
Northern England and Scotland 1831.
At the end of their stay at Withybush, Blomer and his wife visited northern England and Scotland. Although it was getting late in the season he hoped to do some collecting, he would combine his hobby with sightseeing. He had made arrangements to visit fellow entomologists to exchange specimens and to examine museum collections. He left Milford Haven on 6 August 1831 by steam ship for Liverpool. The following day they travelled on the Liverpool to Manchester Railway which had opened the previous year. Blomer was most impressed that the thirty-two miles were covered in only one and half hours. In Manchester he visited the museum to see the bird and insect collections. On 11 August he left Liverpool arriving at Douglas in the Isle of Man, where he went mothing at night, capturing the following day 2 specimens of the Geometrid Coenotephria salicata that Dale and Curtis had discovered as new to Britain during their 1825 tour of Scotland. Between 20 & 22 August he was able to do some collecting at Ramsey at the northern end of the Island but found very little. On the 23 August they left Ramsey aboard the Glasgow steam ship, arriving in Greenock. They visited Loch Lomond on the 25 August travelling to the foot of Ben Lomond which they then ascended, finding very little in the way of insects, Blomer turning stones on the summit and collecting a few beetles. By the 29 August they were in Edinburgh and on 3 September they were back in England at Newcastle, visiting the entomologist and Barrister George Wailes (1802- 1882), who Blomer had previously exchanged insects with by post. Wailes took them on a tour of the Newcastle Museum to see the collections of birds and their eggs and on the 7 September they went collecting together. Blomer and his wife went to York on 10 September where they went to see the dealer Chapman to exchange insects with him and then on the 12 of that month they called on the dealer and professional collector Richard Weaver in Birmingham, Blomer exchanged and bought some insects, but thought him abominably dear. Afterwards they stayed at Pershore in Worcestershire where on the 15 September Blomer took Polygonia c-album, which at that time was considered to be a rather scarce butterfly.
The Liverpool to Manchester Railway opened on the 15 September 1830. Painting by A.B. Clayton. A year later Blomer and his wife Elizabeth travelled on the railway to visit the Manchester Museum.
The Bristol Riots November 1831.
The Bristol riots was the culmination of a struggle for democratic rights, only 6,000 people in Bristol had the vote out of a population of 104,000. After the House of Lords rejected the second Reform Bill, rioting broke out in Bristol that was centered on Queen's Square, many buildings were looted and burned. Work on the Clifton Suspension Bridge was halted and Isambard Kingdom Brunel, its architect, the famous English mechanical and civil engineer was sworn in as a special constable. When Blomer arrived back from his northern tour he stayed at the Clifton Hotel, where he was appointed to lead a division of special constables which may have included Brunel. In a letter dated 18 November 1831 Blomer wrote to Dale " When your letter arrived we had just returned from the north and the Bristol riots occurring directly after which put to flight all my entomological ideas which prevented me my writing before indeed I did not unpack my boxes until the other day, having already made a start at the Clifton Hotel, but the mob destroyed the lodge next door to it. One division of sworn constables was put under my command and we had been out most nights." When the dragoons arrived in Bristol its commander a Lieutenant-Colonel Brereton was ordered to open fire on the rioters in Queen's Square but initially refused, but later he led a sabre charge which resulted in a massacre, how many people actually died varies according to different sources. Brereton refusal to carried out his orders initially led to his court martial. He committed suicide by shooting himself before the trial had ended.
In a letter dated 21 January 1832, Blomer wrote to Dale that an entomological friend had called on him to look at his collection and on seeing his aberration of Melitaea artemis (Euphydryas aurinia) that he had taken in Pembrokeshire the previous summer had stated that he thought it was not only new species but belonged to genus! Blomer thought it a variety of artemis as he had caught flying with that species, Dale also thought it was a variety of artemis. Blomer wrote in a letter dated 5 February 1832 that the entomologist who called on him and said he had a new butterfly was none other than the very wealthy Reverend Frederick William Hope (1797 – 1862), he said he was most unimpressed by Hope's determination, whose main interest was the Coleoptera. Blomer had also made the acquaintance of the Bristol collector George Waring who had invented a useful pair of pliers that bent pins exactly the right shape to hold the legs of Coleoptera and insects species in place while they were being mounted, which was in widespread use by entomologists.
Bridgend 1832.
Blomer and his family left Bristol in April 1832 by the steam Ferry to Newport in South Wales, where they took the mail coach to Bridgend, Glamorganshire, here they were going to spend the summer in a cottage. The unspoiled valleys and the extensive coastal sand dunes of this area would prove a rich collecting ground. Here Blomer met with one of our most enigmatic butterflies, Aporia crataegi that was once found in Britain and which has long been extinct. There was a good population of A. crataegi in the Bridgend area. On 18 May Blomer wrote in his diary " I met a caterpillar fastened with a silken web around its body to a small branch preparing to transform into a pupa, it was the larva of Aporia crataegi, on examining further I found a pupa beautifully marked attached to a branch, on searching the scrubby hawthorn around I found about twenty larvae in different stages of growth". He recorded in his journal for 21 May that the locality where he found the larva of A. crataegi was in the Ogmore River valley, on 2 June he collected his first adult. While out collecting with his son Samuel on the 19 June they encountered 15 adults of A. crataegi and beating the sloe bushes they collected 40 larvae of the local hairstreak Thecla betulae that were dislodged onto his hand held sheet. During two further visits, they obtained many more larva of T. betulae, a butterfly that has long been extinct in Glamorganshire but there are strong colonies further west in Wales. There was a general decline in Britain of A. crataegi in the 19th century, with Allan (1948) stating that it had gone from Glamorganshire by 1870, but it may have disappeared even earlier with Evan John of Llantrisant recording that he had not seen it for many years in that county (Newman, 1871).
Aporia crataegi. Bridgend, Glamorganshire, Blomer 1831. Dale collection, OUMNH.
Blomer often visited the coastal sandhills or sand dunes, lying the south of Bridgend, he took his rake there on 30 May and found 20 larvae of A. praecox. On the 19 June Blomer visited the sand dunes of Merthyr Mawr behind Newton Bay, finding several larvae of Lasiocampa trifolii, a local coastal moth of the Lasiocampidae family. On the way to the sand dunes on the 23 June to look for more larva of L. trifolii, in which he was successful, he found a colony of E. aurinia in a marshy field and took several of the hornet mimicking S. bembeciformis on the trunks of poplars. He and his son Samuel found some good beetles on 20 June around Kenfig pool, which is set among extensive sand dunes near Porthcrawl. In the Ogmore valley leading down to the sea Blomer met with Polyommatus (Lysandra) coridon in plenty, a butterfly that has long been absent in Wales, he also saw two females of T. betulae.
In a long letter written to Dale on the 31 October 1832 from Bridgend, Blomer was sending a box to him of some insects he had collected, and was as usual, still trying to complete his numbers of Curtis' British Entomology, he often exchanged insects for the different parts that he needed. Blomer certainly seemed starved of entomological news, hoping for a copy of Dale's journal detailing his collecting season for 1832 writing " When you return my box I trust you will gratify me with a relation of the captures in entomology and a copy of your journal for last season, this I am sure you will do when I tell you that I have neither conversed nor written to any naturalists for the last six months, it has always been my ill luck to be residing where no other person of the same pursuit is to be found which makes me so discouraged that I am ready to give it up." However, Blomer's interest remained, in a letter dated 10 January 1833 from Bristol he thanked Dale for the pair of Hesperia (Hymelicus) acteon, who had added it to the British list when he had discovered the butterfly the previous August at Lulworth Cove, Dorset. Blomer was leaving Bristol to take lodgings at Cheltenham in Gloucestershire, where in 1833 he subscribed to the first popular journal devoted to entomology in Britain, The Entomological Magazine, which was first issued by the Entomological Club that year. In the first volume of the Entomological Magazine (1834) Blomer's article entitled " Insects Captured at Bridgend, Glamorganshire" was published and a second article appeared in volume two (1834) regarding the finding of a lava in August 1832 of the very rare immigrant hawk- moth Daphnis nerii at Teignmouth, Devon in a Mrs Mitchell's garden that had been communicated to him by his friend Mrs Tayleur. Unfortunately the larva of D. nerii died but not before Mrs Tayleur had made a beautiful drawing of it which she had sent to Blomer. Dale later sent Mrs Tayleur drawing of D. nerii to Curtis who used it to figure the larva with the adult on plate 626 in British Entomology (1837).
London, Winter 1833-1834.
Blomer and his wife spent the winter of 1833-34 residing in London. On the 27 November 1833 in a letter to Dale he wrote " I have been spending two delightful hours with your friend Mr Curtis in looking over his cabinets. I look forward to enjoying a delightful entomological winter. I have become a member of the Entomological Society, at the last meeting there were about sixty members present, the venerable and father of British entomology Mr Kirby was president. Mr Spence and his two sons were there. I hope you will become a member, I am sorry Mr Curtis has declined. I endured to persuade him to do so this morning, if only in procuring a point of view as to the sale of his work but without effort. I do most deeply regret there is such an illiberal feeling existing amongst the entomologists. I would gladly see this man united, as for myself I am determined to stay clear of all parties and try to be friends with all." The Entomological Society of London had been formed in May 1833, its first president was the Keeper of the Department of Zoology at the British Museum J.G. Chidren. James Francis Stephens occupied the chair at its first meeting, when The Reverend William Kirby was elected a Honary life President. J.F. Stephen was one of the leading lights of the society and an original member, becoming President in 1837-1838, at the time of his death in 1852 he was Vice-President. In 1827 Stephens had commenced the publication of Illustrations of British Entomology, which was in direct competition with John Curtis' British Entomology, this had reduced the sales of the latter work, upsetting Curtis, and there started a bitter feud between the two men that divided the entomological community into two parties as reported by Blomer in his letter to Dale. Such was the bitterness of the feud, Curtis did not join the Entomological Society of London until 1851, it is said that before Stephens died there was a reconciliation between the two men (Douglas, 1861). Curtis became president of the Entomological Society of London in 1855. Dale was on very friendly terms with Curtis, and they corresponded from at least 1819 but his correspondence with Stephens abruptly ended in 1827, the year his Illustrations appeared. Dale never did join the Entomological Society, but it had less to do with the feud between Curtis and Stephens and more to do with that he rarely visited London, preferring to explore the countryside of his own parish Glanvilles Wootton with the occasional collecting excursions further afield. In London Blomer met William Edward Shuckard who was interested in Colepertra and Hymenoptera, later producing the book The British Coleoptera delineated, consisting of figures of all the genera of British beetles (1840). Blomer also met John Walton a coleopterist from Islington, London and his friend George Wailes from Newcastle.
The New Forest. 1834.
The New Forest of Hampshire with its extensive woodlands and heathland is still very rich in insects, but 184 years ago when Blomer went there for four months in 1834, it was far richer, he was able to meet with a number of different species of insects that have vanished from the area. The planting of dense stands of conifers, the removal of brambles an important nectar for insects and other vegetation from the woodland rides, intense grazing and human pressure, all combined to the demise of a number of insect species from the Forest, some of which were found nowhere else and became extinct in Britain.
Blomer arrived in Lyndhurst in early April where he spent a fortnight, first staying at the Crown Inn that had been recommended by Dale, but Blomer thought the price of three shillings a night was exorbitant even though servants were included. The following day he and his wife went to stay at the Swan Inn on the outskirts of the village on the Christchurch Road. On 4 April he walked along the road to Brockenhurst where he saw two N. polychloros and another the next day, that were in a wasted condition having emerged from their winter hibernation. On the heath near Lyndhurst on 8 April he encountered two pairs of the Horned Minotaur Beetle Typhaeus typhoeus of the Geotrupidae family and a splendid specimen of the large and very rare Hairy Rove Beetle Emus Hirtus from the Staphylinidae family. Blomer later gave the specimen of E. Hirtus to Curtis who figured it in British Entomology (1835) on plate 534, writing " This is considered a rare insect in Britain, although few good cabinets are without it : for the specimen figured I am indebted to Capt Blomer, who found it in Cow-dung in the New Forest the 8th of April." Dale had previously added E. Hirtus to the British list when he found it on Parley Heath, Dorset on 16 May 1821. This is now one of Britain's rarest beetles, having not been seen in the New Forest for many years, where there a still large number of grazing cattle, however, veterinary products given to those livestock killed the eggs and the larva of the beetle when they contaminated the fresh cow dung, which the beetle only uses. A population is still to be found in the East Kent Marshes, where however the beetle is very rarely seen.
On 11 April Blomer left Lyndhurst for Brockenhurst fours miles to the south, here he and his wife took lodgings with a Mrs Reynolds in a comfortable cottage on the outskirts of the village. The following day they had to stay indoors because of hail and snow storms, although it was early spring, Blomer described it in his diary as the coldest day of the winter. Later in April, the weather improved and turned fine. On the 23 April between Lyndhurst and Brockenhurst in decayed branches of oaks Blomer found a number of species of beetles including 6 of the scarce red Elater beetle Ampedus sanguineus (Linnaeus, 1758). A. sanguineus has not been recorded from the New Forest for many years and is considered to be extinct in Britain.
One of Blomer's favourite hunting places in the New Forest was between Lyndhurst and Brockenhurst, that he records in his diary as Ramblea Inclosure near Ramblea Lodge, both fictitious names for Ramnor Inclosure. The lodge in Ramnor Inclosure later becoming the home of the New Forest keeper and dealer in insects, Charles Gulliver (Morley,1941). The reasons for keeping the actual locality a secret, although it was certainly known to a few collectors, was because it was a locality for Cicadetta montana, a much desired insect from the order Hemiptera that is also now unfortunately extinct in Britain. On 12 May Blomer records in his diary he found at Ramblea a specimen of the spectacular hoverfly Caliprobola speciosa that was discovered in the forest by Daniel Bydder, a Spitalfield Weaver from London who was sent to the Forest in 1812 on account of his expertise as a collector by a wealthy patron, Simon Wilkin of Norwich. During his visit to the Forest Bydder also added the cicada C. montana to the British list. On 20 May at Ramblea Blomer caught Leptidea sinapis and Hamearis lucina that were common in the woods, sadly both have vanished from today's Forest, the former was gone before the end of the 19th century (Goater, 1974), which is a good indication that even by time there were appreciable changes in woodland management. In Britain L. sinapis is very susceptible to any changes of its woodland habitat, where it needs open sunny rich rides that also have some shade cover, where the female likes to lay there eggs on various vetches of the Fabaceae family. Visiting Ramblea on the 15 May Blomer recorded that he captured the local ground beetle Calosoma inquisitor Linnaeus, 1758 that frequents oak woods.
Blomer went to Ramblea on 16 May, writing in his diary " I had the good fortune to beat a Cicada anglica out of a large whitethorn bush onto my sheet and one Microdon apiformis." Cicada anglica Samouelle (1819) is a synonym of Cicadetta montana Scopoli, 1772. The Diptera Microdon apiformis De Geer, 1776 of the Syrphidae family is synonym of Microdon mutabilis Linnaeus, 1758, which in 2002 was split into two species, the other being Microdon myrmicae which is the species found in the New Forest, another Bydder discovery. In Britain M. mutabilis occurs on the northern limestone hills. On 21 May Blomer records he was in Ramblea where he took another cicada and here he met Richard Weaver, who had taken 7 specimens of the cicada and found two cases of the pupa on ferns, from which the adults had recently emerged. On the 21 May he again met with Weaver at the cicada grounds, the professional collector could get as much as £10 for a single specimen (£1140 in today's money) a considerable amount at that time for a single insect specimen. On 22 May Blomer wrote to Dale that he looked forward to his coming, mentioning both his and Weaver's captures of the rare cicada, and that Weaver " has every advantage over me, he knows the locality of very rare insects in this neighbourhood. Weaver has also taken Cleora cinctaria but for the life of me I cannot meet with it". However, in his diary for 23 May he records he took a specimen of the Geometer C. cinctaria, a species that had been added to the British list when Dale had found it at Brockenhurst on 2 June 1823.
Cicadetta montana. Brockenhurst. Dale coll, OUMNH.
On the 24 May in Mr Morant's plantation in Brockenhurst Park, Blomer took a specimen of Melitaea cinxia, a butterfly that was once more widespread in Britain, but today is confined to the Isle of Wight. Dale arrived on 27 May to stay with Blomer, who wrote in his diary "after breakfast Mr Dale and I went to the cicada ground near Ramblea Lodge and found one each". Blomer also records capturing the hoverflies Milesia (Caliprobola) speciosa and Microdon apiformis (M. myrmicae). Blomers records of C. speciosa are of interest as the Dipterist George Henry Verrall (1901) states that he did not know of other records of this hoverfly after Curtis took it near Brockenhurst in 1824, (he was accompanied by Dale) until 1888, when it was taken in the same neighbourhood. On 29 May Blomer wrote in his journal that he and Dale met others collectors in the forest " We went to breakfast with the Reverend G. T. Rudd of Darlington and Mr T. Meynell at Lyndhurst, went towards Decoy Pond and returned to the cicada ground, and saw one cicada." George Thomas Rudd (c.1795 1847) was especially interested in Coleoptera, at the time of his visit to the New Forest he was the curate of Sockburn, North Yorkshire near Darlington, his collection is now in the Yorkshire Museum at York. On 30 May Blomer borrowed Dale's horse and went to Lyndhurst for shoulder of mutton, stopping on the way to do a little collecting taking 3 C. speciosa. At Brockenhurst Dale was busy collecting in the cottage garden capturing 12 of the day-flying Sphingid Hemaris fuciformis that were hovering over flowers in the garden. The 2 June turned out to be very hot, Dale and Blomer went to the cicada ground to look for the Buprestis beetle Anthaxia nitidula that Dale and Curtis had added to the British list when they collected it in New Forest in 1824, they were unsuccessful in their search. Blomer took a cicada and 1 A. crataegi, they returned to the cottage exhausted by the heat. On 3 June Dale left the New Forest for Christchurch, collecting the next day at the sandy coastal cliffs of Mount Misery.
On 5 June Blomer went to Mr Morant's plantation in Brockenhurst Park, he hoped to secure further specimens of M. cinxia but did not see any, it is possible that his specimen taken there earlier was a stray from a colony elsewhere. Although Blomer uses the word plantation, the Morants were the local landowners and it is probable that the woodland here was very old, as that day, H. lucina and B. selene were common along the rides, he also took A. crataegi a butterfly that was quite common in the New Forest but died out there around 1880 (Allan, 1948). According to Allan, those A. crataegi taken in the New Forest was the last indigenous specimens to be seen in Britain. Although it later turned up in Kent, Allan, 1948 provides evidence that it was extinct in that county by the 1870s and regards the later population found there due to releases by dealers and collectors, as this is not a migratory butterfly. Whatever its origins, the Kentish population also became extinct, the reasons Allan suggests were climatic, as later reintroduction attempts all failed. Visiting the cicada ground on 6 June Blomer took one C. montana and saw three. He captured two A. crataegi there on 20 June. On 21 June he collected a full fed larva of N. polychloros on the village elms. He went collecting at Mr Morant's plantation with his son Samuel on 1 July and captured several of the Geometer Scopula ornata, this species has much declined in Britain and is now only regularly found in a few localities on the chalk grassland of the North Downs in south-east England. In a letter to Dale dated 29 June Blomer thanked him for his beautiful present, two baskets of vegetables that he had sent from Blandford, he mentioned after the New Forest he would be going to the Isle of Wight. The day after Dale had left the Forest, on Sunday 5 June, Blomer recorded that Rudd arrived to take tea, and they went collecting together, the Yorkshire collector taking a very rare beetle, Elater castaneus from decayed wood that was "doubtfully British" which only the Reverend Hope had collected before. This scarce beetle is certainly native to Britain, and is now placed in the genus Anostirus. On 3 July Blomer and his family left Brockenhurst for Lymington, taking the steam ferry to the coastal town of Southsea near Portsmouth to stay with an old comrade Colonel Stevens. On 10 July Blomer took specimens of the Horned Dung Beetle Copris lunaris, in a sandy field among horse dung, sadly this Scarab beetle was last seen in Britain in 1974, and is now extinct (Mann, Lane, 2016).
Copris lunaris. Dale coll, OUMNH.
Isle of Wight 1834-1835.
Blomer in a letter dated 6 August 1834 wrote to Dale that he proposed to spend a month or two on the Isle of Wight, he then planned to visit his friend at Worcester. Blomer arrived at the Isle of Wight with his family on 7 August 1834, later renting Mail Hill Cottage at Carisbrooke, a village a mile west of the town of Newport in the centre of the island. Carisbrooke is well known for its castle that is built on a chalk hill, to the north is Parkhurst Forest. On 13 August Blomer took a specimen of the pale female form helice of Colias croceus on the outer ditch of Carisbrooke Castle and found Polyommatus (Lysandra) bellargus and Polyommatus (Lysandra) coridon in profusion. On 15 August he captured another C. croceus f. helice and the following day while hunting insects of the margins of Parkhurst Forest, he captured further specimens of that butterfly. At Carisbrooke throughout September and November Blomer found nests of the larvae of M. cinxia, some of them 15 yards from his cottage door on a bank. On the 31 October he went beating for larvae in Parkhurst Forest. The last adult butterfly he saw that year, 1834 was Vanessa io on the 3 November.
On January 22 1835 Blomer wrote to Dale that he must be surprised that he was still in the Isle of Wight, he had been to London but Curtis and most of his entomological friends were out of town. He had left a box of insects at Curtis lodgings in the care of his landlady, which included the specimen of E. Hirtus that he had taken in the New Forest during April. Blomer had met Shuckard and gave him a box of bees to look over and then return. He mentioned to Dale he had several broods of M. cinxia and that he hoped to visit Brockenhurst again in May, and wondered would Dale be able to meet him there. Blomer was looking forward to receiving the perfect pair of M. arion that Dale had promised to send to him. Blomer informed Dale that he had been confined to his bed for the last five weeks, from a severe sprain of his knee, which was much inflamed, he hoped that he would regain the use of his leg in the spring. A letter dated 16 April 1835 from Carisbrooke was the last that Blomer sent to Dale, he was still confined to his bed and to the sofa and was unable to walk. He had received little entomological news and said that Shuckard has neglected him, he had 70 of Blomer's bee specimens and had not written to him or returned them as promised. Blomer thought that the Isle of Wight was excellent locality for the bee tribes. He mentioned in his letter he had sent for his other son, young Linnaeus on account of his illness. He ended his letter, by saying his cottage is situated in the heart of the habitat of Melitaea cinxia.
Blomer did not recover from his illness and died on 11 May 1835 and was buried at St Mary's Church, Carisbrooke, he was 52 years old. Dale saw the news of his friends death in a newspaper but Blomer's wife Elizabeth wrote to Dale on 6 June 1835 of her loss. She hoped that Dale would help her to dispose by sale of her husbands cabinets which was his wish. She mentioned that the M. cinxia that he collected the previous autumn started to emerge later that May
Blomer's collection.
Dale visited Elizabeth Blomer at Carisbrooke in August 1835 to make an inventory of her husbands collections that were kept in three cabinets containing 3785 specimens. The Lepidoptera collection was in a 22 drawer cabinet that held a short series, usually four of each species with 2536 specimens, which Dale purchased together with 679 specimens of bees, he payed Elizabeth Blomer £53. 11s. (in today's money £6519). Dale's inventory of Blomer's British Lepidoptera collection stated that it consisted of 3 drawers of butterflies, 1 drawer with a few butterflies, the rest macro moths, 15 drawers of macro moths, 2 drawers of micro moths and one drawer of foreign butterflies. Dale later sold Blomer's cabinet in 1839 with most of its specimens to the Reverend J. Streatfield for £35 who presented it to the newly opened Margate Literary and Scientific Institution that became bankrupt and closed in 1866. The whereabouts of Blomer's collection is now unknown. Blomer's Coleoptera was also listed by Dale, but he makes no mention of purchasing them.
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