148 THE EFFECT OF DRY WEATHER UPON WATER PLANTS. 
enough to supply the wants of hundreds of correspondents, but 
we made no impression; we left it as green and apparently as 
plentiful as we found it; indeed I do not exaggerate when I say 
that we might have collected a cartload. 
Many other water plants were no doubt similarly influenced, 
by the unusual weather; but I did not make any systematic 
notes, and the few cases I have given are the ones that stand out 
most prominently in my recollection. I think the Water Hem- 
lock ( Cicuta virosa) might be added to the list, for it was wonder- 
fully luxuriant, as to leaves, but produced few flowers. I think, 
too, that the Great Willowherb (Zpilobium hirsutum), and the 
Purple Loosestrife (Zythrum Salicaria), were both of them finer 
and more full of flower than usual. 
A succession of dry seasons would no doubt be very detrimental 
to water plants; they would probably die out entirely, as rushes 
gradually disappear when land has been thoroughly drained. 
It is therefore the more curious that one exceedingly dry season 
should, in so many cases, have exercised a decidedly beneficial 
influence, and I am quite unable to give any satisfactory answer 
to the question ‘* Why is it ?” 
Rozsert HoLLanp. 
Ghee Hehilyosans.* 
URING an excursion to Wheatley, which the members of our 
Society took four or five years ago, some fossil vertebres were 
obtained in that neigbourhood, which are probably those of the 
Ichthyosaurus, one of those huge animals which inhabited the seas 
of liassic times. By the kindness of the President, these vertebree 
are on the table to night, and I hope a short account of the 
reptile to which they belonged will not prove uninteresting to the 
members present. 
* Read before the Society at the Second Evening Meeting of the Fifth 
Winter Session, December 14th, 1869, 
