NOTES — ORIGINAL AND SELECTED. 27I 



The Colouring of some Essex Shells. — " At Tendring, Essex, there 

 was a large colony of Hdix aspersa var. cxalbida in our garden. The lack of 

 pigment was also very striking among Helix hortensis. The bands on these 

 shells were very frequently transparent instead of being dark. A lack of pig- 

 ment was shared also by many plants, notably sweetbriar, clover, docks, and 

 brambles. Lady Rothchild's head gardener at Ashton Clinton, Bucks, had 

 noticed the same thing there. He attributed it to excess of iron in the soil. 

 The well at Tendring was decidedly impregnated with iron. We noted also 

 that during the great drought of 1S96-1897 the markings of the shells of Helix 

 aspersa were decidedly deeper in colour, being in some cases almost black 

 We had also a fine grape-vine in the garden, for which these snails had a 

 special weakness. The peculiarity in their eating of the fruit lay in that they 

 did not attack one berry and finish it, but ate straight across the bunch, so 

 straight in fact that this looked as it it had been cut with a razor. It may be 

 worth while to record a specimen of Helix nemoralis with a single black band 

 with an opaque white beside it on a pink ground." — (Rev.) E. Pkrcv Black- 

 BUKN in Science Gossip for February, 1900. 



BOTANY. 



Silene anglica, var. quinquevulnera, L. (Spotted Catchfly) in 

 Essex.— Miss Dorothy Barber brought me a specimen of this pretty little 

 plant which she had found at Stanway. I am drying the plant for our County 

 herbarium in the Essex Museum of Natural History. This plant is probably 

 a casual. It is recorded as having been found in Suffolk and in Kent, but I 

 do not recollect that it has been listed for Essex. These casuals are interest- 

 ing, for sometimes they come to stay. — J. C. Shenstone, Colchester. 



Vicia lutea, L. (Yellow- Vetch) at St. Osyth. -This rare and very 

 local plant has been found at St. Osyth by the Rev. John Vaughan. It 

 occasionally occurs upon the coast in many maritime counties of Great 

 Britain, but the only previous record for Essex appears to be that of Mr. 

 Fitch in 1892, who also found it under the Martello Tower on the St. Osyth 

 shore. It is possible that this rare plant is an over-looked native, or at any 

 rate an estabhshed "casual." See Essex Naturalist, vol. vi, p. 116. — J. C. 

 Shenstone, Colchester. 



Setaria viridis, Beauv, at Witham. — Mr. Edwin E. Turner, of 

 Coggeshall, wrote on Oct. 2nd: " I send you a specimen of Setaria virii/is. I 

 found it in a field of maize in Maldon Road, Witham, on September lOth. 

 This grass appears to be rare, although it was once recorded for the County 

 ju Gibson's Flora, and also in English Botany." 



MISCELLANEA. 



Silting-up of Channels off the Essex Coast. — It is a very general 

 impression among the fishermen and yachtsmen in the Colne estuary that 

 some of the smaller channels between the mud and sand-banks are closing 

 up. Whether this is caused by the wearing away of parts of the coast, and 

 the deposition of the detrital matter in these small channels (as is an un- 

 doubted fact on the coast at East Mersea), is a matter which needs investiga- 

 tion. A suggestion, put forward by a correspondent in the Essex Standard, 

 that the phenomenon is partly the result of the present method of getting rid 

 pf the solid matter of London sewage by throwing it into the sea, is worthy of 



