16
records from north-east Essex and some of her localities
are just as popular today. The main centre of entomo-
logical activity, however, was the south-west where the
brothers, Henry and Edward Doubleday, were growing up
in Epping Forest and studying its natural history.
Their careful recording resulted in the publication in
the 1836 issue of the Entomological Magazine of Henry's
"Remarks on the entomology of Epping and its vicinity",
one of the most important sources for a student of the
county entomology. Henry seems to have been the more
adventurous and exciting of the brothers; he went on
an expedition to America and had become curator of the
national collection at the British Museum when his early
death cut short a very promising entomological career.
Meanwhile, Henry laboured on in the family grocer's
shop in Epping. He was more important as a national
than as county lepidopterist since he wrote little
about Essex whereas his Synonymic list of British Lepi-
doptera (1847-50) brought order out of chaos and was a
standard work for half a century.
The Doubledays made an important contribution to
entomological technique by their invention of "sugaring".
Henry noticed that moths, especially noctuids, were
attracted by the sweet residue in the empty sugar hogs-
heads stacked behind their shop. So they hit on the
ploy of diluting sugar and smearing the liquid on the
leaves and trunks of the trees in Epping Forest. The
Doubledays employed an assistant named English, who
was also a good naturalist and years later, after the
death of Henry, in a lecture to the Essex Field Club,
claimed to have been the first to have applied sugar
in this manner, though he made no pretence to have
originated the idea. This led to a lengthy corres-
pondence in the pages of the Essex Naturalist on
whether English or the Doubledays had invented sugaring.
The probable explanation is that the idea had been
Henry's, but the brothers instructed their employee
to apply the sugar while they themselves were busy about
the shop.