134 NOTES — ORKJINAL AND SELECTED. 



off and the other begins, but in an examination of Mid-Glacial Gravel extending 

 over some years, I have never come across striated stones, whilst these are very 

 common in the Boulder-Clay, a circumstance also implying the absence of an 

 abrading ice-sheet. 



In Mr. S. V. Wood's paper on "The Newer Pliocene Period in England," 

 (Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. vol. xxxvi. 1880). he gives several illustrations of the 

 quiet deposition of Boulder-Clay on Mid-Glacial Gravel, and on pages 486 and 

 487 of the volume cited the following passage is to be found : " There can, I 

 think, be no question that these instances show that by some means the moraine 

 of which the clay is composed was introduced tranquilly over a sea-bottom in 

 which sand and gravel had up to this time been accumulating." 



J. French. 

 Fehtead^ June \y/i, 1 891. 



NOTES— ORIGINAL AND SELECTED. 



Badger at Asheldham. — While rabbit shooting the other day over the 

 Asheldham Hall estate, Mr. J. T. Gale and party unearthed a fine badger. It is 

 many years since a badger was caught in the Dengie Hundred. — " Essex County 

 Chronicle," May 29'h, 1891. 



Another Rorqual in the Crouch River — On the morning of the 7th 

 April, the men on board the "Jumbo" (s.) saw a whale, which they said was 

 about fifty feet in length, almost at the same spot where the one was captured in 

 February, near the mouth of the Roach. Some men at work in that river had 

 heard it blowing during the night. It was subsequently seen distinctly by several 

 persons on the sands at the mouth of the Crouch, and is said to have been 

 stranded, but when the tide returned it made a successful departure from this 

 almost inaccessible position. — E. A. FiTCH, Maldon. 



A Swallov^r's " pendent bed and procreant cradle." — In the " Essex 

 Hsrald" for June 9th, it is stated that a pair of swallows have built their nest on 

 the knot of a rope carried from one rafter to another in a workshop in the village 

 of Blackmore. The nest hangs in mid air. 



Homing Instinct of Hyk arborea, L. — Our member, Mr. E. N. Buxton, 

 writes as follows to the " Zoologist " for June : — " Two and a-half years ago I 

 put a small green frog {^Hyla arborea) that my daughter brought from the 

 South of France, into my conservatory here (' Knighton,' Buckhurst Hill). In 

 the following spring he began to croak, and, contriving to make his escape, found 

 his way to the pond where his strident voice awoke the echoes every summer 

 evening. He always remained about the same spot, which was about three 

 hundred yards from the conservatory. Now comes the extraordinary part of his 

 history. When the winter came on, he found his way back to the conservatory. 

 This performance he repeated last year, and now again he has found his voice. 

 That so small a creature should remember where he had been comfortable in 

 winter, and find his way back to the conservatory across an open lawn, seems to 

 me very extraordinary." 



Sea Lamprey in the Colne. — I saw lately a very fine specimen, weighing 

 about four pounds, of the Sea Lamprey {Petromyzou niarmus) which had been 



