11 



four seedlings started in contact or whether the four trunks are due 

 to damage at a very early stage I cannot say. 



Not every fir wood has a lake in it similar to the Black Pond in 

 the Esher woods. Where it is absent there is a distinct loss, for 

 the Scotch fir in combination with water is very effective. In spring 

 the young, soft, pale-green foliage of the silver birches near the 

 water is set off by the dark-green masses of the evergreen conifers 

 behind them. The pond and its surroundings, however, make 

 perhaps the grandest picture when the sun, setting behind the fir- 

 trees some evening near the end of June, makes them look absolutely 

 black, this dark background being relieved by the golden water in 

 front of it, the cotton-grass in full fruit forming a somewhat 

 striking foreground. Near the trees, where the light does not strike 

 it, the water is indeed black, and no one need then ask why the 

 pond obtained its name. 



By the side of the pond is a fine specimen of the Scotch fir with 

 trunk some seven feet in circumference at three feet above the 

 ground. This is the largest I have noticed on the Common, but the 

 species may attain a height of a hundred feet and have a trunk more 

 than twelve feet in girth. 



Ifthe larger trees grow at all closely the soil beneath them becomes 

 covered with fir-needles, which generally e.xtend to a considerable 

 depth — several inches at least. These decay very slowly, and do not 

 seem to afford an agreeable soil for most plants. This is not the case 

 with some of the lower plants, however, numerous mosses, lichens, 

 and fungi, the last especially, doing very well upon them, as many 

 members of this Society can testify from experience. The fir-needles 

 are appropriated by the red ants for building their nests, which 

 sometimes attain an enormous size and contain a vast number of 

 inhabitants. One found on an excursion of the New Forest Natural 

 History Society by Bartley Water in August, 1908, was taken to be 

 some twenty feet round and three feet high. If not too much 

 disturbed the ants occupy the same nests year after year. 



Having glanced a little at the Scotch fir in its natural surroundings, 

 we will look at it in another aspect and examine its life-history from 

 seed to full-grown tree and thence to seed again. If on a bright, 

 mild day towards the end of March we journey to Esher to catch — 

 or try to catch — that very pretty spring moth, the Orange Underwing, 

 it is not at all unlikely that we may capture at least one specimen ot 

 a smaller whitish " moth " being borne away on the wing before us. 

 The apparent moth turns out to be a seed of the Scotch fir, which, 

 being winged, spins along in the breeze in a very moth-like manner. 

 Since it is so well provided for an aerial journey, and will readily 

 germinate, it is not surprising that a wood of conifers rapidly spreads 

 in the direction of the prevailing spring winds. 



At the present time, that is, during May, the wind-spread seeds 

 germinate. The seedlings appear above the surface of the ground 

 with the seed-case still holding together the tips of the numerous 



