CORRESPONDENCE. 



141 



(Jkrmpirkrte. 



Volvox globator. — I shall be glad to be informed where, near Leicester, 

 the Volvox globator can be found. For two or three summers I have tried 

 almost all the ponds in the neighbourhood, and have hitherto failed. — 

 S. G.L. 



[Volvox globator is very capricious in its appearances and disappear- 

 ances. It has been found near Leicester in a pond on the Ansty Lane, 

 near the Gilroes Reservoir; also in a pond on Beacon Hill, Charnwood 

 Forest.— W. J. H.] 



Helix Lapicida. — During a recent walk I found, on the roadside 

 near Halloughton, Notts., about 1£ miles south-west of Southwell, 

 one dead specimen and a fragment of another of Helix lapicida. Close, 

 searching did not reveal any more, or any live ones. This is rather a 

 curious locality, as the soil is Upper Keuper red marl, and the nearest 

 locality, as far as I know, Pleasley Vale, about twelve miles away, where 

 I found it a short time ago. There is no limestone nearer than the 

 Magnesian Limestone of the Leen Valley. Dr. Gwyn Jeffreys, in his 

 work on British Conchology, remarks that it is not restricted to calcareous 

 districts. This being the first time I have found it away from such, I 

 thought it worthy of remark, it being a new locality for Notts. — 

 C. T. Musson. 



Moles. — I noticed in the May number, (page 117,) a letter signed 

 " Enquirer," remarking on the unusual number of molehills this last 

 winter, and asking for some explanation of the cause. The reason is 

 probably not that the moles have been unusually busy, but that they 

 are unusually abundant. It seems probable that a wet summer is 

 favourable to the habits of moles, as the ground continues soft and 

 in a suitable condition for working their subterranean passages in 

 search of food. A dry summer is fatal to them, the ground becoming 

 as hard as iron, and the grubs and worms on which they feed 

 descending far out of their reach ; and in such summers I have 

 found them lying about on the top of the ground in scores, starved out. 

 If this is so, we may see, in the increase and prosperity of the mole family 

 during the succession of wet summers, of which we have been complain- 

 ing, an interesting example of the law of the " survival of the fittest." — 

 Richard E. Scriven, Castle Ashby, Northampton. 



Larentia C^esiata. — During a week's run in the Peak of Derbyshire, 

 I took a few specimens of the very beautiful larva of this species. It is 

 said to feed on bilberry and heather, but I found it, both by day and by 

 night, exclusively on the latter, while it feeds chiefly, if not entirely, on 

 the former. The colouring of the larva remarkably resembles that of 

 the heather shoots ; and there are two leading varieties, pink and green, 

 the former resembling the withered shoots of last year, while the latter 

 are strikingly like the young budding shoots of tiie present season. The 

 object of this is obvious — the protection of the larva from its natural 

 enemies, birds. But it is truly extraordinai-y that the plant imitated 

 is not that on which the larva feeds, but that on which it rests when not 

 feeding. — Chas. F. Thornewill, Burton-on-Trent. 



Ash Leafing. — I have to-day, May 17th, seen the Ash breaking out 

 into leaf in this neighbourhood, and in a slightly more advanced stage at 

 Dudley Castle. — C. Cochrane, The Grange, Stourbridge. 



