3o6 NOTES AND NEWS. 



Veronica spicata. Not in ' North Yorkshire ' or ' Flora of West 

 Yorkshire.' V. spicata proper is an eastern counties form, 

 V. hybrida western counties only. Query — luxuriant V. offici- 

 nalis'^ V. serpyllifolia also occurs, but Mr. Goodchild has not 

 recorded it. 



Salix herbacea. Not known to Mr. Baker (' North Yorkshire,' 

 p. 282). Grows on Cross Fell; now gone even from Ingle- 

 borough, according to Mr. F. A. Lees. Probably a stunted 

 form of 6". repens is intended. 



Polystichum Lonchitis. * Exterminated.' Never known in 

 Swaledale. The lonchitidioides var. of P. aculeatum is found 

 still in Cliff Gill, at the eastern base of Great Shunnor Fell, 

 Mr. F. A. Lees informs me. 



Hymenophyllum tunbridgense. H. JVilsoni, if either ; that is 

 in ' North Yorkshire ' for Upper Farndale in Cleveland. And 

 see notes in ' Flora of West Yorkshire,' p. 499, to the two species. 



Symphytum officinale is native in North Yorkshire only within 

 the o-ioo range according to Mr. Baker, and Mr. F. A. Lees 

 treats it as rarely native in West Yorkshire ; Borago officinalis is 

 recorded by both as a casual only. Ought not, therefore, may be 

 to be changed to must be, in Mr. Goodchild's observations ? 



NOTES AND NEWS. 



The 37th Annual Report of the Nottingham Naturalists' Society, for 1889, 

 contains, in addition to papers of more general scope, a useful one by Mr. James 

 Shipman, F.G.S., on ' The Geology of Nottingham ; \Yhere and How to See it.' 



An interesting feature of the Leeds meeting of the British Association was the 

 series of geological photographs brought together by Mr. Osmund W. Jeffs, of 

 Liverpool, of which a very large proportion were contributed by the Yorkshire 

 Geological Photographs Committee, of which Mr. J. E. Bedford, of Leeds, is the 

 Secretary. 



With reference to Mr. Jarvis's query on p. 22S, as to whether Squirrels have 

 been known to eat fungi, Mr. T. D. A. Cockerell writes us that last year he saw 

 a Grey Squirrel (apparently Siiurits fremonti) canying off a large agaric by 

 Willow Creek, Custer Co., Colorado, and that Dr. C. H. Merriam, to whom he 

 related the incident, informed him (in litt., Nov. 8th, 1889) that the Squirrels of 

 the Siiiints hudsouiiis group habitually eat the larger fungi. 



We learn with the deepest regret of the death' of Mr. James Backhouse, of 

 York, which occurred on the 31st of August last, at the age of 65. Possessed of 

 a hereditary taste for the natural sciences, he did much to promote their advance- 

 ment in a variety of ways. To him in large measure — in conjunction with his 

 father and afterwards with his sons — we are indebted for the discovery of many of 

 the Teesdale rarities, and botanists are also indebted to him for his most reliable 

 ' Monograph of the British Hieracia,' a difficult genus which few knew so well 

 as he. Readers of our own journal will remember his most interesting paper 



on the Teesdale plants in the number for August, 1884. 



Naturalist, 



