154 NOTES — ORIGINAL AND SELECTED. 



"The fallen part of the trunk has been replaced in its original position b}- 

 Mi'. Theobald's instructions, the better to protect and preserve the remaining 

 portion, and to restore the trunk to its original appearance, with the rustic see.t 

 around it." We shall be glad of any further information about this oak, which is 

 evidently very ancient, although the age assigned to it in Mr. Bruton's note will 

 be received with considerable hesitation by botanists. — El). 



Spring Foliage on the Oaks at Midsummer. — In some of the woods in 

 this district, the oak trees have been nearly as bare of leaves as at Christmas, the 

 result partly of frost, but more especially of caterpillars, which were in great 

 numbers, and cleared off every bit of green. I noticed this particularly in a wood 

 in Stanway, near Kingsford Bridge ; but lately the oaks there have quite recovered, 

 and instead of seeing the bright green of the midsummer shoot, with a backing ?f 

 darker foliage, the trees are now in the spring coating of light green leaves, just 

 as one sees them when they first put out their full foliage in early spring. 1 never 

 remember seeing such a mass of light green at this time of the year as is now 

 shown in Kingsford Grove. It may be that I never saw such destruction by cater- 

 pillars as has been apparent this year, and it would be of interest if observers in 

 other parts of the county would state whether they have noticed a similar condition 

 of the foliage of the oaks in their districts, the results of similar causes. — HENRY 

 Layer,- F.L.S. Colchester, July 7th, 1894. [Several times in my recollection the 

 oaks in certain parts of Epping Forest have suffered severel)- from the depredations 

 of caterpillars (chiefl)' Cheimatobia briimata, and Hybertua defoliaria^ and 

 aurantiarid) in the way described by Dr. Laver, and have afterwards put on fresh 

 leaves in the summer, a renewed spring. This phenomenon occurred last year, and 

 in a less degree during the spring and summer of the present 3-ear. Such second 

 foliation has a very marked effect on the appearance of the midsummer woods, 

 and also diminishes the number of leaf-galls and other insects, whose eggs may 

 be laid on the buds or yotmg leaves of the oaks in the spring. — WlLLL-VM COLE.] 



Algae and Folklore. — In 1890 I sent to The Essex Naturalist (vol. iv., 

 J). 142) a note with regard to Euglena on a pond surface at East Donyland, which 

 at certain times of the day changed from green to red, to the alarm of the supersti- 

 tious who looked upon the phenomenon as an omen of blood. The appearance 

 was again to be seen in 1891. I notice in " The Antiquary " for July an account 

 of the Holy Wells of Scotland, from which it appears that St. Tiedwell's Loch in 

 the Orkneys was anciently believed to appear like blood before any disaster befell 

 the royal famil}', a tradition which may not improbably have been due to a similar 

 cause. On July 2nd I visited the Donyland ponds again, and found the one 

 which was covered with Euglena in 1890 and 1891, is this year full of green 

 patches, which turn out to be an alga consisting of loose spirals; or coils, appar. 

 enlly Anabwna, or one of the Nostocew. If some member of the Club with leisure 

 would investigate by actual cultivation, the life-history of some of these forms 

 which come and go with mysterious periodicity, a great deal that is at present 

 altogether unknown might be discovered; and possibly it would be found that 

 species differing even as widely as these that are named above have a closer 

 relationship than is at present suspected. Your readers may be also interested to 

 know that in the same pond are now to be found numbers of balloon-shaped lumps 

 of jelly, three to four inches in length. They appear to be void of organisation, 

 and may be only the remains of some kind of spawn, but in the plasm are vast 

 numbers of the beautiful Pediashttm. — Charles E. Benham, Colchester, July, 

 1894. 



