218
A NATURALIST'S BIOGRAPHY.
A NATURALIST'S MR.
FRANK
BIOGRAPHY.
NORGATE,
c.1840-1919.
B Y THE REVD. EUSTON J O H N NURSE, M . A . , OF
F.R.G.S.,
RECTOR
WLNDERMERE.
A MAN of m e d i u m height with a black beard and dressed in a light b r o w n suit that consisted of a Norfolk-jacket, baggy trousers and a polo cap to match, having a circular silver brooch the size of a Shilling in place of necktie and boots with indiarubber soles but no heels, arrived during the ' eighties at Bury St. E d m u n d s to live, almost next door to my M o t h e r and me, at 14 Southgate G r e e n [later occupied by M r . W . H . T u c k ] . Report dubbed h i m a Naturalist, but neighbours wondered if he were an amateur or dealer in Tnsects. I soon made his acquaintance and found a born collector of Butterflies and M o t h s , Birds-eggs and Flint Implements, one who had been such for many y e a r s : very knowledgable u p o n many subjects, including Botany w h i c h made h i m anxious to obtain f r o m my M o t h e r bulbs of Tulipa sylvestris, L., then growing wild in the plantation adjoining her garden. Later I f o u n d h i m a most painstaking collector and remember, when seeking Insects in Wicken Fen one afternoon, he searched the cluster of Sallows we first Struck so carefully that he did not get beyond it that day ! In this way he f o u n d the egg of Notodonta torva, H b . , in north Norfolk during 1882, first discovered as British and it was identified by Barrett (Lepid. Brit. Isles iii, 123) : [also, he first noticed the ab. bellus, Gerh., of the Hairstreakbutterfiy Thecla quercus, L., at Drayton D r u r y there ( E n t o m . vii, 69)]. Norgate's collection of British Birds eggs, like those of his Butterflies and M o t h s , was very extensive and each kind had a separate drawer in his c a b i n e t : so that, as he collected in clutches, the drawer containing Nightjars' eggs showed about sixty broods, two eggs to each clutch. By exchange among m a n y friends he added vastly to i t : and I r e m e m b e r sending him two Netted-carpet M o t h s , Eustroma reticulata, Fab., f r o m the W i n d e r m e r e district for which he returned a cabinet fĂźll of all I wanted of his duplicate Birds-eggs, duly labelled. But one year, when I found a Woodcock's nest with four forsaken eggs in it at Monks-park Wood in W h e l n e t h a m on 1 April, he blew the eggs for me and for long I had great difficulty in getting t h e m back : ' T h e y are as safe in my cabinet as yours,' he maintained ; though n o w they are safe in my own : his large drawer was already nearly fĂźll of clutches ! Once we went to collect the Noctuid M o t h Bryophila muralis, Fst. var. impar, Warr., on the old Cambridge college-walls ; and, w h e n we walked f r o m the Station, disappointed cabmen referred to Norgate's usual brown polo-' cap ' as the next best thing to a ' cab.' H i s collection of Flint Implements was, I suppose, one