DR. BENJAMIN ALLEN, OF BRAINTREE. 165
The drawings are accompanied by brief descriptive notes,
chiefly relating to colour. Data as to the times and places of
occurrence of the insects delineated are not common, but are
found in some cases. For instance, we are told that Smerinthus
tiliae (the Lime Hawk Moth, no. 87) was drawn "from a
graph[ic] description] of Mr. Dale"; that the larvae of Demas
coryli (no. 121) were taken, "in Aug. 1729, by my daughter
Katherine, on a white filbird" (i.e., filbert) ; that Parnassius apollo
(no. 122) was "taken on the Alps by Mr. Ray"1; and so on.
Occasionally, too, one meets with notes of some local
interest, as, for instance, the statement (p. 235) that the Purple
Emperor (Apatura iris) had occurred at "Hedingham and Blake-
more End [in Wethersfield]." Another such entry of local
interest (p. 317) is this :—
[Oaks] last many hundred years, probably to 1000 ; for the oak at Hatfield [Broad
Oak] that lasted to our Civil War and the coming in of K. Charles 2 was so great
at the Conquest as to be mentioned for a "bound in Sir C. Barrington's deeds,
. . . as "the Great Oak," as Mr. Ously, who read them, assured me.2
An observation on a habit of the Peacock, recorded (p. 262)
on the authority of Sir Clopton Alleyn, of Black Notley, is as
follows :—
Observing the great and frequent screaming, Sir Clopton went to see, in the
Lane, the occasion [and] found the Peacock at an adder. On the adder encircling
and holding up his head to spring at him, he [that is, the peacock] screamed and
leapt back every time, but danct round it and, getting behind it, peckt his back,
and then got off and screamed; but, though call'd off and checkt, would not
leave it till he had kill'd it, and then peckt to pull [?pieces] and eat it, and he
[that is, Sir C. A.] believ'd eat it up, or most of it ; and [he] afterwards found it
making these [i.e., adders] its game.
The Peacock is luscious meat. It dos harm to thatch, so the farmer does not
love to keep them long.
In leaving the natural history portion of Allen's Common-
Place Book, it will be convenient to turn aside to notice a
matter which has no connection with that book.
It will be remembered that, in the year 1698, Allen contri-
buted to the Philosophical Transactions some notes on the breed-
ing of the Eel, and that these were criticised by his friend Dale,
1 See ante. p. 153.
2 The Rev. John Ousley became rector of Panfield on 4 Nov. 1668 and resigned in 1694,
on his appointment (20 April) to Springfield Boswell, of which he was still rector in 1700,
when Newcourt wrote (Repertorium, ii, pp. 461 and 538). He died probably in 1703, when
Michael Harland was appointed rector (see Salmon, p. 381). He was one of the earliest
historians of Essex, and his researches were utilised by Tindal, Holman, Salmon, Morant,
and other later writers on the history of the county