88 



NOTES — ORIGINAL AND SELKCTED. 



of May. [Two swarms came forth from the straw skeps in our garden at East 

 Mersea on May 15th, which we considered remarkably early. — W. COLE.] 



Vanessa Antiopa in Epping Forest. — On Saturday, April 7th, I was 

 delighted to take a hybernated specimen of the " Camberwell Beauty" butterfly in 

 Great Monk Wood, Epping Forest. — W. F. Whittingham, " North View," The 

 Drive, Walthamstow. April 23rd, 1894. 



Inscribed Letters in a Tree Trunk. — In the middle of December last, 

 during one of the heavy gales that prevailed at that time, a large elm was blown 

 down by the roadside near Cannock Mill, on the road to Donyland, near Col- 

 chester, A month or so later portions of the timber were being chopped up for 

 firewood when a curious discovery came to light. A piece of the trunk split open 

 under the chopper, and revealed the letters " B. P." boldly inscribed on one sur- 



INSCRIliED LETTERS IN AN ELM-TKEE. 



face and in clear relief on the other. The tree had in former da3^s marked the 

 parish boundary of St. Botolph's. Bark had been cut away and a plane surface 

 of wood levelled, on which the letters had been cut. The bark appears to have 

 crept over and covered up the inscription, and the growing wood fibre of the tree 

 had buried the letters deeper and deeper into the tree trunk. I have heard of a 

 story, whether apochryphal or not 1 cannot tell, about a somewhat similar incident, 

 though of a more romantic character, the following suggestive lines having been 

 similarly incised in the heart of a piece of timber : 



" Long shall this tree witness bear 

 We two lovers walked here." 

 The discovery at Colchester has led me to wonder whether other parish boundary 

 marks have not been tree-swallowed in the same way. The present instance 

 shows that such cases could he detected without cutting the tree down, for the 

 outside scar would never be completely covered up. 1 am on the look out in this 

 neighbourhood, and have already found a suspicious-looking tree exactly level 

 with the modern stone boundary of a Colchester parish ; but unfortunately, the 

 trunk is so clasped with ivy that its secret, if it has one in its heart, is at present 

 inscrutable. Members in -other pans of the county might hunt for examples, for 

 it is not unlikely that trees were, in the times of the " simple great ones gone," 

 the accustomed landmarks of parochial boundaries, — CHARLES E. BeNHAM, 

 Colchester, 'April, 1894. 



