HARD Wl CKE'S S CIENCE- G OS SIP. 



2 39 



.neighbourhood of Louth. One of these cockles, I 

 observed, had attached itself to the foot of a newt, 

 and another was enclosing the toe of a frog. Is this 

 a common occurrence ? — R. IV. Goulding. 



Seeds of Solanum dulcamara. — I should be 

 glad to know whether the seeds of Solatium dulcamara 

 are poisonous to birds. During some severe weather 

 in the winter of 1SS3-4, I saw some bullfinches 

 greedily eating them ; the birds seemed to avoid the 

 fruit, for the snow under the hedge was strewn with 

 the pulp of the red berries. — D. Jlf. LL. 



Paulownia imterialis. — I have a large tree in 

 my garden here, more than twenty feet high, which 

 I have never known to do otherwise than flower each 

 spring for certainly the past six years ; I have not 

 heard of its failing to do so previously. As a tree, 

 the Paulownia is by no means handsome, and the 

 .flowers are lost sight of so high up, but I have been 

 told that, as a shrub, it is well worth cultivating. I 

 should be very glad therefore if any of your readers 

 could tell me the best means of propagating it. My 

 gardener has tried cuttings, but without success. 

 There used to be an old tradition here that at one 

 time there were only three Paulownias in England, one 

 being my own, another being, curiously enough, in a 

 garden in the undercliff of the Isle of Wight, belong- 

 ing to a brother of mine ; the third, I think, somewhere 

 in Hampshire, but where I never heard. Can your 

 correspondent D. Owen have stumbled on this 

 third specimen ? — A. Lloyd, The Dome, Bognor. 



[The note on Paulownia, on p. 166, was written 

 from Clifton.] 



Mimulus luteus. — In a ramble in North Devon 

 at the end of July I met with the yellow monkey- 

 flower completely naturalised, and in great abundance 

 for more than three miles along the banks of the Tarn, 

 near North Sawton. It was then in full bloom. A 

 lady informed me that in 1876 there was none of this 

 plant by the river, but that a few years afterwards it 

 began to spread from a garden to the stream. As it 

 is now thoroughly established, it nay be well to fix 

 the date of this. Since Watson in the "Topographical 

 Botany " does not allude to the distribution of this 

 pretty plant, and Syme speaks of it as occurring chiefly 

 in Scotland, it would be interesting to obtain in- 

 stances of its naturalisation elsewhere in England. — 

 F. LL. Arnold, LL.B. 



Achatina acicula. — This shell, which is 

 generally considered somewhat rare, has lately been 

 found by Mr. 'Joseph Wilcock in gardens in Wake- 

 field. In April and May he found considerable 

 numbers in a neglected garden among the fibrous 

 roots of weeds, at a depth of from 6 to 10 inches. 

 In July, whilst digging up tulip bulbs in a garden in 

 another part of the town, Mr. Wilcock found some 

 hundreds, about one-third of them in different stages 

 of growth, being alive. The living ones were dis- 

 covered beneath the outer envelopes of the bulb, and 

 also in small pits or cavities, which seemed to have 

 been eaten into the bulb by the mollusk. A. acicula 

 is generally found on the limestone, but Wakefield is 

 on the Carboniferous Sandstone ; and what is singular, 

 the gardens are within the town close to the streets. 

 — Geo. Roberts, Lofthouse. 



White Flowers. — Ajuga rcptans. White varieties 

 of this plant are sometimes found in this district, but 

 they are not at all common. I have noticed albino 

 varieties of the following plants this season ; Lychnis 

 Flos-cuculi, Epilobium angustifoliuin, iMalva moschata, 

 Fritillaria Meleagris and A T arcissus Pseudo-narcissus ; 



in the latter the corona alone was white, the perianth- 

 segments being lighter than the type. — John W. 

 Odell j Pinner. 



Rana esculenta. — When I was a boy, some 

 forty years ago, we used to find the Edible Frog 

 rather plentifully in Foulmire (or Foulmere) Fen, 

 Cambridgeshire. I believe that Fen has been 

 drained and cultivated, so that probably all the Rana 

 esculenta have disappeared^ from the locality now. — 

 Thomas Scott. 



Mistletoe. — To Mr. Webster's list of 28 "hosts" 

 for the mistletoe, I can add one more. On April 6th, 

 1883, in Palestine, in the Vale of Nabulus or Shechem, 

 the "fat valley," I found a mistletoe growing abun- 

 dantly on olive-trees. It is not dichotomous ; so I 

 suppose the species is not album. You can publish 

 this fact if you deem it worth while. — B. B. Le Tall. 



Freezing Machine. — I have searched in vain for 

 an account of Carre's Continuous Freezing Machine, 

 and should be glad to have it explained, or to hear 

 where it is described. I am also desirous of learning 

 the amount of water-vapour absorbed by sulphuric 

 acid at any pressure and temperature ; also the 

 quantity of ammonia absorbed by ice, and whether 

 a solution of ammonia freezes at a lower temperature 

 than water. — J. P. 



LlMNyEA STAGNALIS, var. " ELEGANTUXA." — Mr. 



Taylor said that this form resembled var. bollnica, not 

 botanica as misprinted in the footnote on page 179. 

 I know of no var. li botanica." My brothers have 

 taken three more scalariform specimens in the pond 

 where this variety is found, so that altogether five 

 have been found in this little pond, which has un- 

 fortunately been dried up by the recent hot weather. 

 — T. D. A. Cockerell. 



Zonitis Draparnaldi. — Last July I found some 

 Zonites at Torcross, S. Devon, which Mr. J. W. 

 Taylor has identified as this species. This is the 

 second or third locality in South Devon for which it 

 has been recorded, and it is evidently more widely 

 distributed than has been supposed. Other things 

 found at the same place were Z. alliarius, PL. aspersa, 

 LL. nemoralis, 00300, I2 345, 00345, 023(45), PL. rufes- 

 cens, LL. hispida, LL. revelata (one specimen in an old 

 slate quarry facing the sea), LL. virgata, LL. caperata, 

 PT. rotundata and var. alba, LL. pulchella, B. obscurus, 

 P. umbilicala, Balea perversa (common in one place 

 under an old wall), Clausilia rugosa and Coch. lubrica. 

 —F. G. Fenn, Bedford Park, W. 



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