6o 



HARDWICK&S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



every year, viz. Sutton Park, our friends may well 

 and profitably examine the waters above alluded to, 

 especially if some of our influential local naturalists 

 would kindly use their influence with the Baths and 

 Parks Committee, and get them to let the anacharis 

 and nitella alone, and not rake every particle of 

 vegetation out, like I see they are now doing at 

 Sutton Park pools (of course, I mean a reasonable 

 amount of plants left in), not to quite exterminate 

 the plants, as I think they give the pools a more 



he i-*^ 



Fig. 29. — Stephanoceros ciclwrnii. 



natural appearance. There seems to be a disposition 

 on the part of some people to convert the lovely park 

 at Sutton to the conditions of a gigantic tea-garden, 

 and the exquisite lakes to Corporation Bathing 

 Places. I trust this will never be the case. I think 

 something of this has been done, or tried, in some 

 part of Epping Forest ; however, Epping has more 

 room than Sutton, and Birmingham naturalists, I 

 feel sure, would be with me in this matter, both 

 botanists and lovers of all the exquisite beautiful 

 forms found in the lakes and ditches would never 



consent to an artificial condition like I have spoken 

 of. Nature unadorned is adorned the most from the 

 view of a true naturalist, and, as I know well 

 enough how much Science-Gossip is read in the 

 Midlands, I hope plenty will see after this matter 

 and join issue on it. In Sutton Park there are all the 

 elements favourable for the development of one of 

 our most exquisite class of algre, namely, the plants 

 called desmids. There they alone flourish in all 

 their beauty ; and nowhere else for many miles from 

 our city can a student find such charming form and 

 variety as at Sutton Park, and I find scarcely any of 

 these class of plants in the parks (this is Sutton's chief 

 character) ; only in the far-off bogs and sphagnum 

 swamps of North Wales and the Lake districts can 

 any one expect anything of importance in this class- 



I have here now only just to dip my ring-net twice 

 or thrice through the mass of Sphagnum cymbifolium, 

 when I could secure variety to my heart's delight — 

 micrasterias, peniums, xanthidiums, cosmariums, spi- 

 rotenias, closteriums, and others in abundance ; and 

 now, if the powers at Sutton set to work some day 

 or other and put the park through a thorough course 

 of drainage, all this charming class of plants will be 

 improved off the face of the park, not, of course, to 

 speak of thousands of other forms, including animal 

 life — the rotifera, polyzoa, infusoria, land the fila- 

 mentous forms of alga?. So, if the worst comes to 

 be the case, all I hope is, that our parks won't be 

 allowed to follow suit in this matter, for I have been 

 extremely thankful to them many a time for being so 

 convenient. 



Now in the undermentioned list, I must add, are 

 only those forms enumerated which I could (fully 



