276 NATURAL HISTORY NOTES CORRESPONDENCE. 



Natural History Notes by Observers. — Uppingham. — Strawberries, 

 Primroses, and Cowslips in bloom. Orleton. — The grain crops have been 

 secured in good condition. Stroud. — Swallows still seen in this neighbour- 

 hood (Oct. 13th.) Coston Rectory. — Harvest not completed by end of 

 month. More Rectory. — The harvest, though late, was got in fine 

 condition by end of month ; Potatos a good crop. There has been a 

 perfect plague of flies here ; all summer visitors, including the entire 

 swallow tribe, have disappeared. Waltham. — The heavy rains from 13th 

 to 19th spoiled the bulk of the crops in this district. Shifnal. — Figs 

 ripe on open wall on 19th, tomatos also on 22nd. Tortoiseshell 

 butterflies in unusual numbers, with a Peacock and two Red Admirals, 

 (first seen) ; the Sedum spectabile theii great delight. Only few 

 damsons, and apples scarce. Nottingham. — Field sports have been 

 sadly spoilt in September by the heavy rain of June and July, which 

 made terrible havoc with poor young Partridges ; nearly all the brave 

 little fellows were drowned, and many of the parents perished also ; 

 1879 was bad enough, but 1880 is the worst partridge year since I860. 

 Another summer similar to the last, the birds would in many low-lying 

 districts be almost extinct. Very many Hares also were found by the 

 mowers dead in the grass and clover crops, the excessive rainfall being too 

 much for them also. Sir William Harcourt's " Hares and Eabbits Bill " 

 might well have been postponed for a season ; Nature has quits 

 satisfactorily thinned poor bunny without his assistance. 



fanspritattt. 



Leptodora hyalina (new locality for.) — As the earliest announce- 

 ment of the finding of Leptodora hyalina in this country was 

 made in your pages, I have thought it might interest some 

 of your readers to hear of a new locality for this interesting 

 and beautiful entomostracan. I spent the last fortnight of 

 September at Keswick, and from the description of the places 

 in which it had previously been found, in England and on the 

 Continent, I thought it very likely that it might also be obtained from 

 Lake Derwentwater. I therefore had a net of fine muslin constructed, 

 about two feet long, gradually tapering to an aperture at the end. In 

 this aperture I inserted the neck of a wide-mouth bottle. This apparatus 

 was towed very slowly behind a boat. The water passed through the 

 net, but all the animalcules were left in the bottle, and to my delight, 

 almost the first haul brought up several specimens of Leptodora. After- 

 wards we got them more plentifully, but in some parts of the lake 

 the bottle brought none up. They need to be looked for very care- 

 fully, for they are so exceedingly transparent, that one very easily misses 

 Beeing them. It seems to me very probable that similar lakes would all 

 produce Leptodora if searched in this manner. The ones we obtained 

 were all in the mature stage, but none seemed to have ova. Besides 

 this I got from this lake nine other species of entomostraca alone — viz., 

 Polyphemus pediculus, remarkable for its enormous eye and rapid move- 

 ments ; Bosmina longirostris, a comical fellow whose superior antenna 



