360 Linnean Society. [Jan. 16, 



A guide was with me, who found close by Woodsia Ilvensis growing 

 in some quantity. Three good things were they not, to be growing 

 on a spot only a few yards square ? It was on an outcrop of iron 

 ore, which seems to me always to be a good ' matrix ' (?) for ferns. 

 This took place not many miles from Scaw Fell, though not on it. It 

 was of course plain that the locality had never been before visited 

 by a botanist. Mr. Clowes found Euphorbia Cyparissias growing on 

 Whitbarrow Fells in great quantity. I have gathered it on the 

 mountain limestone of Somersetshire near Wells, and I should think 

 it will prove to be a true native ; on the continent it is the com- 

 monest of weeds, especially where there is limestone. I followed 

 your advice about keeping the Helix Pomatia till the spring, when I 

 fed them up and kept them till impregnated, and then turned them 

 out. The dry summer was rather against them, but I dare say they 

 are all right, though I have not searched for them since. I have 

 found another rare shell in the Ashford woods, Clausilia Rolphii — I 

 think about its fifth or sixth locality in England. 



" Last September and October I took a rapid run on the continent 

 up the Rhine, — Heidelberg, Baden Baden, Basle, Soleure, Bern, 

 Interlaken, the Simmenthal, Vevay, Geneva, over the Jura to Dijon, 

 Fontainebleau, Paris, and home. The season was late ; flowers mostly 

 over, and deciduous ferns killed down, so that on the Alps I did not 

 gather Woodsia alpina as I wished. I found on the Jura in one spot 

 my favourite Aspl. fontanum. In the Pine forests of the Alps and 

 Jura, Polystichum Lonchitis grows in the most wonderful luxuriance ; 

 I have dried some fronds 22 inches long ! Its appearance is quite 

 beautiful ; I dried a good deal and brought away some live roots. 

 Aspl. septentrionale too abounded on the alpine rocks. I found Helix 

 obvoluta at Heidelberg at the foot of the walls of the Castle amongst 

 grass, and also at Thun in a wood. Helix Pomatia was very com- 

 mon and abundant everywhere." 



Read also a Letter addressed to the Secretary by John Hogg, 

 Esq., F.R.S., F.L.S. &c., dated " Stockton-on-Tees, December 27th, 

 1 854," of which the following is an extract : — 



" Since my return home, I have had an opportunity of learning 

 more particularly respecting the large fish which was stranded last 

 September in the Tees Bay ; and I have now not the least doubt 

 that it was a common Tunny, and that too of a large size. One of 

 the fishermen who had seen the fish, on cutting it said — the flesh 

 looked like highly salted bacon, i. e. red with salt or saltpetre. He 

 described it in size as ' being pretty well on to 60 stone,' which at 



