1G2 RECOLLECTIONS OF A TOWN GARDEN. 



windows. The summer migrants were perhaps the most interesting; 

 these were the spotted flycatcher, redstart, willow wren, blackcap 

 warbler, and garden warbler, etc. There were several pairs of 

 flycatchi-i i every year on an ivy-covered acacia until it was 



blown down, another in a vine, and a third once on the hinge of an 

 unused door. The redstarts generally built on the ivy-covered wall on 

 the cast side of the garden, but one year a pair made their nest in some 

 ivy on the south side of the house, close to the street. The blackcaps 

 and garden warblers built in the lilac hedge, and the willow wrens 

 amongst the grass in the " Hollow." Swallows (Hirundo rustica) built 

 under the eaves of some outbuildings, and the whole summer loug 

 circled over the garden, high in the air in fine weather, or up and down 

 the lawn and over the bank into the Hollow when it was dull and 

 cloudy. Swifts built in the towers of the Minster close by, and added 

 their cheerful screams to the general chorus. 



I hiving touched upon the botany and ornithology, I ought to say 

 something of the entomology of the garden, but am only competent to 

 do so in a general way. There were the ordinary sorts of butterflies — 

 red admirals, peacocks, tortoiseshells, whites, and many moths, 

 large and small, of which I do not know the names. Lady-birds were 

 common, especially in spring, in the box edging to the gravel paths, 

 and beetles of all kinds. On the banks of the " Hollow," in hot, dry 

 weather, there were numbers of a small red insect, about one-eighth 

 of an inch across, round, and the colour of vermilion. Wood gives a 

 picture of it in " Common Objects of the Country," but no description. 

 He calls it " Trombidium." We called it the red spider. 



A squirrel lived in the larch trees ; when one of thern blew down 

 its nest was found at the top. One other inhabitant was the Roman 

 snail, ( Helix pomatia.) About two dozen were imported from Kent, 

 and lived for many years about the wall, but, I believe, never increased 

 in numbers. I am told they are much scarcer in Kent now. The 

 common garden snail (Helix aspersa) was to be found in hundreds, 

 but was now and then effectually thinned by a bribe of Id. the dozen, 

 which the children received for destroying them in salt. 



This interesting old garden is now in the hands of strangers, and, 

 with the paddocks surrounding it, likely to be cut up into building 

 plots, so it is to be feax*ed tho birds will be driven away and its 

 character quite altered. 



A. E. I. 



THE MINERALS OF THE MIDLANDS. 



BY C. J. WOODWAHD, B.SC. 



The following replies were received too late to be acknowledged 

 in the May number : — 

 Derbyshire. 



Mr. V H. Boot! White, B.Sc, P.G.S., reference to an article in the 



