228 BOTANICAL RAMBLES IN WARWICKSHIRE. 



discovered in 1881 near Ludlow. Crackley Wood is tlie second British 

 station for this very rare fungus. We also noticed that the leaves of 

 Lychnis ditinia were plentifully infested with Pucciniu lychnidearum. 



The following day we paid a visit to Sutton Park, and in passing 

 over the grassy land bordering the Witton road Dr. Cooke collected 

 two noticeable fungi, Paiueolus leucophane.s and /-". plialcenunnn, both 

 new to the county, and rare species. Sutton Park we found very 

 barren of fungi, large areas being passed over without sighting even 

 the commonest species. The most frequent, however, were Fanaolus 

 jimiputris, Hijpholoma apjiendiculata, H. suhlateritiits, Stropharia semi- 

 globatus, and Panceolus separatus. In the woods Lactarius mitissimus, 

 L. subdulcis, and occasional specimens of the beautiful Stinkhorn, 

 PJtallus impiidicus. But the more interesting species noticed were 

 liussula cyanoxantlia, R. citrina, Inocyhe asterosporus, very local, and 

 Psilocybe udiis, all rare, and some new as records for the county. 

 Although the results of our fungi rambles were on these occasions 

 very meagre, they were very pleasing to me, giving me the advantage 

 of many a pleasant chat with an old friend and very genial companion. 



I may also mention that I recently found in meadows near Ather- 

 stone-upon-Stour, one of the stalked Polyporei, which Dr. Cooke 

 decided to be P. rufesceiis, also new as a I'ecoi'd for Warwickshire. 



J. E. BaciNall. 



ON A DKAGON FLY.* 



By Silvanus Wilkins. 



In April last I had the pleasure to win your kind attention to a 

 short paper on Fisli Rearing, written in plain purpose to show that 

 some practical work can be done with little or no cruelty or waste 

 of life if your tools are of the right sort. 



I mentioned at the x-eading that I had been led to do this to refute 

 a statement I had seen "that there was nothing to interest the 

 naturalist in the Midlands, and that it was a district to be shunned." 

 The Stickleback, I hope, furnished to my companions a fair instance 

 of fish life-history, in, it would be thought, the least likely of regions. 



I venture to fill up the allotted twenty minutes and space of five 

 or six pages this time on Insect Life, limiting it, as before, to what 

 anyone with patience may see or do, and as I am mildly indignant at 

 the above aspersion against the Black Country as a libel, it suggests 

 itself to me to choose the Libellulina for our notice, because it so 

 happens that this is quite as good a spot for watching the habits of 

 the Dragon-fly as it was for the fish, and perhaps that insect, having 

 all the parts in perfection that constitute a type insect, offers, take it 

 for all in all, from the egg to the imago, as quaint a series of pictures 

 as can be found in any one creature (excepting man, of course). 



* Head before the Binningham Natural History and ilicroscopical Society, 

 Kov. 22, 1881. 



