In Pursuit of Butterflies Read online

Page 5


  At 9.15 am, precisely, on Monday July 26th, another large and perfect male Purple Emperor descended from on high to pierce the soul of one who stood by the eastern gate into Madgeland Wood, off the Marlpost Road. The hoof-printed ride there was fringed with tall sallows, leaning inwards from a young Beech plantation. This was no ordinary male, for in the corners of his hindwings were atypically enlarged and prominent pink-red ocelli. Moreover, there was no vestige of purple, or of the bright royal blue the Emperor so often displays; instead, this male possessed the light blue of a fresh male Adonis Blue, though more electric in tone and of uniform iridescence. In such situations one should simply freeze, without breathing, and allow His Majesty to settle to feed on the ride, which He usually will. But no one had told me that, and it is not an easy skill to master in such stimulating company. The Vision, for such it was, flew off in a huff, but haunts the mind still. Minds, of course, enjoy being haunted so.

  Yet the spell was not broken. Further down the lane another, more typical male performed similarly. That afternoon, at least five males conducted their ‘Battle Royale’ (as one Victorian collector termed it) around the birch clump down towards Dragons Green. At one point three tussled together, magnificently, chasing each other high up, out of sight. Osiris himself – the same male I had seen two days earlier – led this ritual, dominating possession of the sheltered leeward side of the birch clump.

  It would take something of cataclysmic importance to drag me away from that Paradise-on-Earth. And it did. A casual, celebratory telephone call home revealed that my sister was dangerously ill in hospital in London. Camp was upped, three miles were force-marched to Christ's Hospital station, and London was hastily reached. Sister duly recovered. The 1971 Purple Emperor season had passed at its peak. Another summer was over.

  5 Into the green

  It is a mistake to read Notes & Views of the Purple Emperor during one's A-level year for, unlike most A-level textbooks, it is addictive. It transports the reader into Heslop's world, a world of singular, obsessive quest deep into one of Nature's strangest mysteries – the ecology of our most elusive and odd butterfly, the Purple Emperor. But it is wrong to view the book merely as the product of obsession and rampant theorisation, which on a superficial level it surely is. It is far more than that. Proper study launches the reader on a personal journey towards the truth. No other book is remotely like it. One should be able to study it for A-level.

  Nature's woods offer such a world, for forests are slow to reveal their secrets, drawing you in until they know you trust them. Once you are under their spell, forests will close around you, if you let them. They will then absorb you. They may also send you away, perhaps for years, before calling you back. Places, perhaps wood especially, can establish you as theirs.

  Spring was somewhat late in 1972, May was indifferent, and June unrelentingly wet. Then, predictably, the A-level examinations at the end of the month brought with them a massive anticyclone, luring an entranced mind away from the exam hall. The hot weather actually persisted after the wretched things had finished. But by now the season was decidedly late. White Admirals did not emerge before July 12th, and then only appeared in horrifyingly low numbers. Later I learnt that White Admiral populations fluctuate acutely in those woods, erupting in fine summers (especially during good summer sequences), but imploding to token population levels after wet Junes. The high summer of 1972 was dominated by the Ringlet, which was profuse in grassy rides and pockets of rough meadowland that year. Previously it had been rather local, occurring in small loose colonies here and there.

  School finally dispensed with my services on July 17th. I had failed to take in both hands most of the opportunities it offered, largely because my real schooling had taken place in the woods and lanes, and was unfinished. Make no mistake, no pupil has loved Christ's Hospital as a place more, for that may not be humanly possible. The fact that its many characters and complex rituals were perplexingly Gormenghastian is secondary here. It is a deeply beautiful place, within a landscape of intense natural beauty. Although I left school with ease, I could not leave that landscape behind – it had claimed me. The Purple Emperor calls his servants – or perhaps they are merely addicts – home. A week after leaving school I returned there by train, sped through the place like a ghost, carrying a cumbersome rucksack, heading once more for the woods. There was no alternative. Unfortunately the weather deteriorated, badly, and I was forced to return home, wherever and whatever that was. But before the abandonment one great afternoon was experienced, with three, four or maybe even five male Purple Emperors battling it out around the clump of Silver Birch trees, and the odd female skulking nearby amongst the sallows. White Admiral, though, was almost non-existent, and Purple Hairstreak numbers were about ten per cent of the previous two years’ standard. 1972 was a shadow of a summer.

  Strangely, only one of Jonah's boys dedicated his life to butterflies. But what happened to those other young enthusiasts? Cesar was never heard of again, a lengthy search by his close friend Longhurst failing to find any trace. Longhurst himself emigrated in 1981 and became Australian, even at cricket. Strangely, though, one thing still binds him to his West Sussex birthplace: a love of British butterflies, especially a longing for the Purple Emperor. Periodically he returns to England, in July, on pilgrimage, almost losing his Western Australian accent in the process. It was he who set up the Purple Emperor website, www.thepurpleempire.com, to maintain contact with the only thing he missed about Britain. Johnson was re-encountered briefly in the mid-1990s, professing still a love of Nature and of butterflies, but vanished again, confessing to be a lost soul. The others never resurfaced, perhaps because seventy per cent of Old Blues, as alumni are known, become top income-bracket earners – and butterflies are scarcely compatible with that sort of lifestyle, let alone with the accompanying values. Also, many of their generation simply emigrated during the Thatcher era. Ratnieks did resurface, gloriously, and sober, as Professor of Apiculture at Sussex University. Butterflies have remained an interest. Norman Fryer's son, Tim, developed a bad attack of atavism and became fundamentally Welsh, changed his name to Dafydd and worked as the Forestry Commission's landscape architect for Wales, living in Ceredigion. His interest in butterflies and other wildlife survived, and is threatening to flourish. He writes the most illegible Christmas card messages, probably in Welsh.

  And what of the woods themselves?

  In the late 1960s the bulk of Marlpost and Madgeland woods consisted of unsullied ranks of dense, unthinned non-native conifers, primarily Norway Spruce but also blocks of Corsican Pine and some Douglas Fir stands. The Forestry Commission had felled and replanted most of the ancient woodland during the 1950s and 1960s, leaving a fringe of old oaks around the edges, an isthmus of natural woodland along a steep-sided stream corridor and a scatter of broad-leaved trees elsewhere. Two small blocks had been replanted with oak, interspersed with Norway Spruce as a nurse crop. Felling and replanting ceased after 1967, so ending the supply of young plantations upon which the early successional stage butterfly species were dependent. Crucially, the Forestry Commission failed to thin the conifer crop, which slowly strangled itself and stopped growing. It is now well known that Norway Spruce grows well for a few years on heavy clay soils, before stopping and then slowly dying.

  The broader rides were heavily poached up by the hunt, which regularly patrolled the woods during the winter. Many rides were so heavily ridden that they were rendered almost devoid of vegetation, turning from a gluey morass in the winter to ankle-twisting hoof-print-riddled concrete during dry summer weather. The wider rides were lined with tall broad-leaved sallows and surprisingly large amounts of brome and European Gorse, on which Green Hairstreaks bred. Locally, the rides held a rich flora, with much Betony, Bird's-foot Trefoil, Bugle, Common Knapweed, Devil's-bit Scabious, Primrose and Wood Spurge.

  Cattle were occasionally depastured in summer along some rides by an ancient rustic who ran a smallholding in Marlpost Wood. This was Ber
t or Pete Rusher, depending on his mood. A gnome-like gentleman with a strong Sussex accent, he dressed in shorts and hobnail boots in all weathers, and cycled in daily from nearby Southwater. Though eccentric in many ways, with a science-fiction-orientated imagination that readily transported him to other planets, he was a seriously good stockman. He taught me cattle husbandry. He died during the 1972/73 winter, sitting against an oak trunk, contemplating the sunset. A garish and ostentatious house now stands on the site of his smallholding. Both Pete and Bert must haunt it, without mercy.

  In a moment of sublime inspiration, the Forestry Commission surrendered its lease on Dogbarking, Marlpost and Madgeland woods just before the Great Storm of October 16th 1987, probably in an act of divine retribution, felled most of the ailing conifers. The devastation was wondrous – an impenetrable inter-tangled morass of prostrated trunks reminiscent of the early stages of a Great War battle. The place had had enough, and wanted to sort itself out. The purge was finished off by the January 1990 storms. Interestingly, the broad-leaved stands withstood the onslaught, incurring only incidental damage. The wisdom of large-scale silvicultural experimentation with non-native tree species on heavy clay soil had been gloriously exposed. As Twelfth Night's Feste the Jester so aptly put it, ‘And thus the whirligig of time brings in its revenges.’ The mess was systematically bulldozed, and burnt on massive funereal bonfires that put the foot & mouth pyres of 2001 to shame.

  Subsequent changes have been phenomenal, not least because the western half of Marlpost was grazed by horses for several winters, before woodland slowly reasserted itself, mainly in the form of Silver Birch, Pedunculate Oak and hybrid sallows. The place clearly wants to be native broad-leaved woodland again. The grazing seems to have helped the ground flora recover from years of needle acidification, for it is richer in the areas that were grazed. Only a single small block, at the north end of Marlpost, was replanted, with Pedunculate Oak and Ash. It became a good Purple Emperor breeding ground as sallows readily established themselves in it. Hardly a vestige of the conifers remains today. It is almost as if the woods have thoroughly purged themselves, and expunged a wretched era of their history. The eastern half of Marlpost was left to natural regeneration and is well on the way to becoming mixed broad-leaved woodland, containing much Ash, Silver Birch, Pedunculate Oak and sallows. A dozen pairs of Nightingale sing in Marlpost Wood each year, the Bluebell carpet is slowly returning, and Primroses once more line the rides.

  The rides themselves have been kept open by occasional mechanical pruning. This means that the bordering sallows take a hit every few years, though they recover remarkably quickly and function as short-rotation pollards. Strangely, the stolid ranks of brome and European Gorse have not recovered, apart from along a couple of short stretches of ride. The woods are used for shooting, and are still used by the hunt, though not as freely as of yore. This means that the rides are less quagmired than formerly. Traffic hums from the east, and aircraft circle overhead whilst waiting to land at Gatwick. The biggest change is that dog walkers have penetrated in numbers, so that the woods are not the secret world they used to be. Moreover, butterfly enthusiasts now abound during the high summer period – photographers, primarily in search of Purple Emperors. This is somewhat detracting, and indeed curious, as there are many better woods in West Sussex for the Big Three – Purple Emperor, White Admiral and Silver-washed Fritillary.

  Few features of bygone times remain. One of these is a small and futile water tank, sited to put out forest fires. It is the last surviving relic of an inglorious era. Inscribed in the peeling conifer-green paint is a Greek inscription, taken from Coleridge's Biographia Literaria: Αurιon άdιon άsw (‘Tomorrow I will sing a sweeter song’).

  The other woods to the south, old Hazel coppices with standard oaks in the main, have largely been neglected and have closed over. Few butterflies fly there now, other than myriad Purple Hairstreaks around the oaks, as open rides and glades are few and far between. Many of the conifers in little Northlands Wood blew down in one of the great storms, but too many of the wretched things survived and reasserted their stranglehold. Its oak and Bluebell fringe was largely grubbed out in the mid-1970s for agriculture. The wood is a shadowed land now, hanging its sylvan head in shame and shade. Few if any butterflies occur there, other than canopy-dwelling species, Purple Emperor and Purple Hairstreak, which romp about overhead, unseen, and the odd shade-loving Speckled Wood, Meadow Brown and Ringlet. A passing naturalist would never know how profuse and deeply magical the Pearl-bordered and Small Pearl-bordered fritillaries were in Northlands Wood in the late 1960s and early 1970s, or that Duke of Burgundy bred there annually on the Cowslips and Primroses, or that Brown Hairstreak females dropped down to lay their eggs on the Blackthorn suckers, or that Nightingales and Turtle Doves serenaded the stars and sun, when all was well with the world. Of course, it would take only some ride opening and glade creation, or the reintroduction of coppicing for wood fuel, to reinvigorate these southernmost woods, their ground flora and their butterflies. Woods go in eras, and sleep for a while (they do that annually, each winter). The most south-westerly of the woods, Hoe Wood, a woodland of considerably antiquity, was grubbed out during the late 1970s, for agriculture. Many of the hedges intertwining within that landscape also disappeared around that time.

  In terms of the butterflies themselves, four former resident species are now extinct in these woods: the three spring fritillaries and the Wall Brown. Small Heath and Green Hairstreak appear also to be lost, but residency and extinction can be very hard to prove. Several other species have declined noticeably, in particular White-letter Hairstreak and the two spring skippers, though all three of these have hung on and are starting to recover. Only Essex Skipper and Marbled White have definitely colonised, though Brown Argus is probably becoming a true resident. Silver-washed Fritillary has increased spectacularly, and is now fairly numerous around oak stands. The Purple Emperor has remained impervious to all this change. It probably flies no more in some of the Dragons Green woods, though there are still reasonable populations in Madgeland, in two areas of Marlpost, and in Dogbarking Wood. There, Norman Fryer's old ‘Master Oaks’ – three oaks at the ride intersection on a sheltered high point – are still used by Purple Emperor males each afternoon. There dwell the high spirits of the midsummer forest.

  The simple truth is that the woods and their butterfly faunas have changed beyond recognition during the forty-plus years. Change here has not simply been gradual or iterative, for at times it has been sudden, dramatic and unforeseen. Everything changes. Everything is phase. Change is the norm.

  A digression, into names

  For persistent mucking about in double Latin one winter term, the master (whom we shall call Mr Kegley, perhaps because he was keg-shaped) sentenced me to double detention – only he forgot to set me anything to do. So the time was spent determining the derivations of some of the Greek and Latin names of British butterflies. This was excellent self-punishment. Armed with a huge Latin dictionary and Robert Graves's The Greek Myths I set upon the task. It was so enjoyable and revealing that I carried on, long after detention had ended, almost managing to work out the lot. The venture took most of a wintry term. This, rather than hours of Herodotus and Vergil, fired up some passing interest in the Classics. Kegley had no sense of humour whatsoever and consequently said the funniest things imaginable, which in front of a class of fourteen-year-olds is fatal. Double Latin on Thursday afternoons was side-splitting, painfully so at times. Kegley once caught me sugaring for moths at a midnight hour, but I managed to persuade him that I was praying to a conveniently placed water hydrant, having developed a bad attack of religion. With Kegley, there was little point in telling the truth as it would not have been believed. He was last seen, in 1975, dressed in plus-fours.

  We must be grateful to the work of A Maitland Emmet (1908–2001), an Oxford classicist and keen entomologist, who dedicated his retirement to researching and writing The Scientific Names of the Briti
sh Lepidoptera: their History and Meaning (1991). Compared with his work, my own efforts pale into insignificance, though we reached similar conclusions (in the late 1980s we fell out, amicably, over the meaning behind the genus Apatura).

  Our butterflies have the most glorious names, both English and scientific, which are the legacy of centuries of wonder and study. Both types of name have great resonance, and influence our perception of the character of our butterflies. The names have meant an immense amount to butterfly enthusiasts over time and are an essential part of what appeals to us about these creatures. However, the names are not fixed in tablets of stone, having always been subject to alteration, following changes in taxonomic knowledge and fashion. Changes are regularly made to the scientific names, so much so that at present the English names tend to provide better stability, though they themselves are also subject to occasional modification.

  The English (or common, or vernacular) names of individual species attempt to be descriptive, though in a rather idiosyncratic language. Skippers skip in flight, swallowtails have long forked-wing tails, hairstreaks have fine hair-like lines on the hindwing undersides, tortoiseshells are tortoiseshell-coloured, and the name fritillary may be derived from the Latin fritillus, the chequered dice-box of a popular Roman gambling game. The assonance is superb. Without doubt, the English names capture the characters we attribute to our butterflies, especially in conjunction with the Greek and Latin of the scientific names.