Birch Wood, Kent, a celebrated old locality for insects

摘要

In conversation with Roger G. Booth as we tried to decipher a hand written record in a collection catalogue dating to the first half of the 19th Century, we discussed the whereabouts of Birch Wood. We had decided that one locality we were having particular difficulty with, read 'Birch-w.' I immediately recognized this as an abbreviation for Birch Wood, a favourite collecting ground of coleopterists and other entomologists in the early 19th C. Roger informed me that there had been various exchanges on beetles-britishisles@yahoogroups.com discussing where Birch Wood might be, or might have been. The matter was settled by A.B. Drane in an e-mail to the group (Oct.29, 2013) who correctly located Birch Wood ('half a mile east of Swanley station') using a 'first edition O.S. map (Sheet 80)'. He suggested that woodland at TQ501688, on modern maps, might be a small, surviving fragment.