178 Notes and Comments. 



WEIRD WINDS. 



In a note on ' The Means of Plant Dispersal : — Storm 

 Columns," in The Selborne Magazine for April, the Rev. E. A. 

 Woodruffe Peacock states : — ' On July 28th, 1908, there was 

 another fall of outside material at Cadney, which by singular 

 good luck was fully observed. I was sitting writing at my 

 study table in the window, and as I looked up from my paper 

 detected the grasses slowly falling from a cloudless sky. I 

 seized the field-glasses and ran out to observe all that I could 

 make out. This shower had been on for fully five minutes 

 before I detected it, and lasted for about another ten minutes 

 afterwards, judging solely by the material on the ground when 

 I first ran out and the after-addition made to it. Standing on 

 the footpath in the middle of the Vicarage garden, the falling 

 grasses seemed to be about three feet apart. The smoke was 

 going straight up from the chimneys round, and so far as I 

 could detect there was not a breath of moving air. The fall 

 was quite perpendicular and very gradual, but with what I 

 may call a good deal of side-slip in some of the specimens. I 

 put the marine sight on the field glasses and ranged the zenith. 

 What distance these binoculars would carry upwards I cannot 

 say, but as far as I could range with them with there was 

 falling material coming from a point beyond my aided vision. 

 On an average every fragment of a plant or perfect specimen 

 was about a yard from the next at first, and from twenty to 

 twenty-five feet when the fall was about over.' 



THE VASCULUM. 



The Vasculum for March contains some notes on ' The 

 Vegetation of Sea-Sand,' by Mr. H. Jeffreys ; the Rev. J. E. 

 Hull has an interesting paper on ' Natural Features in local 

 Place-names ; ' Mr. J. W. H. Harrison writes on ' Sallowing ; ' 

 Mr. J. S. T. Watson on ' The Nightjar ' and Mr. C. E. Robson 

 reports on the Field Meetings. Mr. G. B. Walsh gives an 

 account of ' The Entomologist's Bookshelf,' in which many 

 works of varying worth receive a cheap advertisement. We 

 doubt, however, whether any ordinary human entomologist 

 has such a book-shelf. Mr. T. A. Lofthouse contributes ' A 

 few Entomological Notes from Upper Teesdale,' and there are 

 the usual valuable ' Notes and Records.' We eagerly looked 

 to two important items named in the ' Contents,' but they 

 proved to be notices of papers in the Journal of the Quekett 

 Club and The Naturalist respectively. 



A COALFIELD IN THE FENLAND. 



We notice in the discussion of a paper on ' The Effects of 

 Earth Movement in the Sheffield District, etc. [Trans. Inst. 

 Mining. Eng.), Prof. Kendall referred to ' a very small-scale 

 map that he had ventured to put before the Royal Commission 



Naturalist, 



