ZOOLOGICAL NOTES 55 



Chseroeampa eelerio, Z., at Galashiels. It may be of interest 

 to note that a fine specimen of the above species of Hawk-Moth 

 was taken in the town of Galashiels in the month of October this 

 year. The species always appears to be uncertain and irregular in 

 its appearance, and in Scotland has only occurred in the Moray 

 area and the south, as stated in Barrett's work, vol. ii. p. 55. The 

 present example found its way into the collection of the South of 

 Scotland Entomological Society, but through the good offices of the 

 Secretary, Mr. John Clapperton, it has been presented by them to 

 the Royal Scottish Museum. PERCY H. GRIMSHAW, Edinburgh. 



BOTANICAL NOTES AND NEWS. 



Carex murieata, Linn., in North Aberdeen. Among plants 

 collected in the neighbourhood of Banff during the autumn of this 

 year (1906) by Mr. William G. Craib, a student in the University of 

 Aberdeen, were several local and scarce species. Among them was 

 an example of the above sedge, gathered in the parish of King 

 Edward. This is its first record for the vice-county of North 

 Aberdeen (92), though known from the neighbouring vice-counties. 

 It is very local and nowhere common in the north-east of Scotland. 

 -J. W. H. TRAIL. 



The Disappearance of British Plants. In the " Journal of the 

 Royal Horticultural Society," in December 1906, appeared an excellent 

 address on this subject (reproduced in great part in the "Journal of 

 Botany," 1906, pp. 414-422), well deserving to be read and thought 

 over. To those familiar with the flora of a town and its vicinity 

 the local disappearance of species is only too evident ; yet Prof. 

 Boulger found himself unable to name a single species that had dis- 

 appeared wholly in recent times from the British Islands, while re- 

 calling the extinction of Calamagrostis neglecta, var. borealis, from its 

 single locality, a marsh near Loch Tay in Mid Perth, recorded by 

 Mr. Druce. The editor of the " Journal of Botany " adds Erythrca 

 latifolia, no longer found on the Lancashire sandhills, its former sole 

 British habitat. Others are, if not extinct, perilously near that fate 

 in Britain, and stand in need of protection. Only a few are in 

 serious danger from the covetousness of botanists, the more serious 

 risks arising from industrial and urban operations, amusements such 

 as golf, and the collection of wild plants for sale by tradesmen. 



Botanical Nomenclature. The unavoidable difficulties in the 

 determination of the correct names of plants are sufficient in them- 

 selves to test the perseverance of the student, and to bring despair 

 to the less sanguine. When to these are added the more irritating 

 troubles caused by the diversity of names applied to the species, 

 and by the changes of names rendered so frequent by the researches 



