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
A NATURAI.IST'S
BIOGRAPHY.
219
of the largest private ones in England, for he had lived in the Grimes Graves district of the Breck, where there has been a flint manufactory from prehistoric times, and his method of searching a given area f r o m stake to stake was most persistent; it included both palaeolithic and neolithic axeheads, spearpoints, arrowpoints of every size and shape from all parts of the world, carefully labelled. Frank belonged to a well known Norfolk family, eldest son of the Revd. Thomas Starling Norgate of Sparham, where he lived at the rectory ; in his younger days he was delicate and slept in front of an always wide open window whether it were raining, windy or snowing. He was advised to have an open-air life, so became a collector; and I have bicycled from Bury with him to collect Lepidoptera at T u d d e n h a m St. Mary on many occasions. Punctually at noon he would sit on the ground,or preferably a stone-heap, and have his lunch of about two pounds of boiled haricot-beans with bread, which he maintained were easily digested, though with no drink. He was eccentric in many ways, like most entomologists I have met ; also religious, and particular in having family prayers in his study in the morning and evening when, if any friends happened to be with him, he would say ' I have prayers at nine o'clock : if you wish to join us, I shall be pleased, but if not I cannot ask you to stay any longer'. And, immediately after prayers, he added ' Now daily work must be done,' which doing consisted of inspecting the trunks he had already sugared in his well-timbered garden ! He came to dinner with us quite frequently in his dress clothes, consisting of a black velvet Norfolk-jacket, knee breeches, black silk stockings, buckled shoes with rubber soles but no heels, and a gold circular brooch fixing his white linen collar instead of either his daytime silver one or a necktie : and a very delightful conversationalist he was indeed. When I was taking tea in London once, he asked me to have an egg which I refused upon finding them uncooked : however, he cut one in halves with a knife and ate it, saying ' You make a great mistake if you ever cook an egg, for they are much best raw.' FĂźll of romance was Norgate's first marriage : he was collecting the Crimson-underwing Moths Catocala sponsa, L. and promissa, Esp., at Lyndhurst, where the customary etiquette is to fix your card to the firsc tree in the glade you choose and all the tree-trunks you sugar along it are yours for that night. Nevertheless, he was found by a lady-collector to be trespassing upon her glade : after apologising profusely, he introduced himself and begged to accompany her upon her round ; with the result that he became engaged to this daughter of the well known Dr. Gclding Bird during his visit, and married her in due course. I believe Miss Bird to have been the discoverer of Lepidopterous larval preservation, which process enabled Lord Walsingham in the course of four years to form the permanent collection of such caterpillars
220
A NATURALIST'S BIOGRAPHY.
upon their own food-plants that is now exhibited in the British Natural History Museum. When Norgate married his second wife, Miss [who had been his daughter's governess, at St. Thomas' church in Upper Clapton on 24 September 1903 : Edith Rose, daughter of the Revd. Henry] Inman of North Scarle in Lines, they stayed at Bury for a few years before going to live near the Crystal Palace. I remember visiting him there and, in course of conversation, said ' I don't suppose you know your next-door neighbours in London,' to which he replied ' Yes, I know them all : I have called at every house in this road, and asked the maid to teil her mistress that I have found all the caterpillars in her front garden and may I, a neighbour and stranger, have permission to go into her back garden to find more caterpillars. The lady generally comes to interview me, looking me up and down suspiciously, and finally gives permission on seeing my card, and teils me to come again whenever I like : therefore I know everyone in this road.' Very seriously he told me, in the course of that visit to him, that he had just experienced the greatest trouble of his whole life: he had had an estate left to him—in one of the best Norfolk localities for Entomology, Birds and flint Implements of all England ; and that he feit too old to live there ! Having attained three score years and ten, Frank Norgate died in London, leaving a wife and a daughter surviving ; but whether they still own his collections and large ledger of Notes illustrated by his own hand I know not. My recollections of him are those of an indefatigablv energetic collector, of a pleasant companion with a knowledge which few Naturalists have surpassed, and that of a courteous and religious English gentleman. [More exactly he died early in March 1919 ' at an advanced age' (Entom. Iii, 119). When first calling upon him at 98 Queens Road in Bury, we were led into a small sittingroom and occupied its bare centre upon two cane-seated chairs, knee to knee with this gaunt sallow-faced fellow of the jet-black hair and beard, who gazed upon us with solemn eyes, vouchsafing no word for a quite tedious period. We never saw him smile. Humour, however, there must have been ; or he could hardly have replied fortissimo, when accosted for trespassing, " Don't you know who I am ? I am one of Her Gracious Majesty's liege subjects." Also, while giving evidence before the select committee on Wild Birds' Protection in 1873, he attributed the unwarrantable slaughter of Nightingales to keepers' inveterate belief that their song kept Pheasants awake o' nights !—Ed.]