330 Notes and Comments. 
THE ‘GREY WETHERS. 
The ‘Grey Wethers’ of the Marlborough Downs are well 
known. They consist of hardened and solidified boulders of a 
stratum of Eocene, which formerly covered the Chalk. These 
‘Sarsen stones,’ as they are locally called, are scattered about 
the surface of the ground, and vary in size from small boulders 
to vast masses weighing sixty or seventy tons. For many years 
the sarsens have been broken up for building purposes, etc., 
and these interesting geological relics are threatened with 
destruction. <A fine collection of them occurs in Pickle Dean, 
near Marlborough (see Plate XXXV.). For a sum of £500 
twenty acres can be secured and preserved for all time. An 
appeal for funds is being made by the Wiltshire Archzological 
Society, the Marlborough College Natural History Society, and 
the National Trust (25 Victoria Street, S.W.), and this we 
commend to the notice of our readers. 
LAMARCK’S EVENING PRIMROSE. 
The most conspicuous of the many alien plants which occur 
on the sandhills and sandy wastes of St. Anns-on-the-Sea is 
Lamarck’s Evening Primrose (Qnothera Lamarkiana, Ser.). It 
is probably of North American origin and produces a daily 
succession of rich yellow flowers from July to November. This 
is the species which occurred at Hilversum near Amsterdam, 
and in 1886 attracted the attention of Hugo de Vries. He 
studied the variations long and minutely, and the result was his 
well-known ‘ Mutationstheorie.’ Mr. Charles Bailey has 
examined the varieties at St. Anne’s, and gave an account of 
his results in an address to the Manchester Field Club, which 
has been recently published.* This plant has been established at 
St. Anns upwards of thirty years, and occurs on both sides of 
the Ribble Estuary. Mr. Bailey gives a summary of De Vries’ 
results, and reproduces in detail the characters of the principal 
mutations. He shewed that new elementary species attain their 
full constancy at once, no intermediates occurred amongst them, 
that they made their appearance suddenly, and there was no 
apparent evidence of a struggle for existence or anything 
that savoured of natural selection. The principal variations 
found at St. Anns consisted of slight modifications of the petals 
and styles. The striking modifications in height, branching, 
* ©De Lamarck’s Evening Primrose on the sandhills at St. Ann’s-on-the 
Sea.’ Chas. Bailey. Manchester: Hinchcliffe & Co., July, 1907. 
Naturalist. 
