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Queries and Answers. 



cause, all surface would be crowded with them, and pasturage impeded." 

 The object of Mr. Dovaston's paper is to account for the appearance of 

 mushrooms and other fungi in those circles in grass land which are called 

 fairy rings ; and he attributes their thus appearing to the excitement of 

 electricity. The above remarks, sufficiently heterogeneous in themselves, 

 are not offered as any attempt at elucidating the subject which Mr. Mer- 

 rick's query has excited, but as clues and considerations attached to 

 the subject, which any correspondent will much oblige us by farther 

 evolving. — J.D. 



A remarkable Variety of the Common Oak. — Sir, Herewith I transmit to 

 you specimens of a singular variety of the common oak (Quercus J?6bur), 

 the peculiarity of which consists in the leaves being long, narrow, and 

 for the most part destitute of the usual indentations so characteristic of 

 oak foliage, {fig. 152. a.) You will observe that the leaves occa- 



sionally evince a tendency, more or less, to indentation (b and c), 

 especially those placed lowest on the shoot, i.e. the first that are ex- 

 panded in the season : these are often of the usual form (d), and whole 

 sprays, indeed, are to be found on the tree, bearing nothing but the 

 ordinary foliage. The oak which produced the above specimens is a 

 young growing tree, measuring, at breast high, little more than 3 ft. in 

 circumference ; it stands in a hedgerow, by the side of a lane, in this 

 parish, and, I should judge, is of spontaneous growth. Though I have 

 for many years been in the frequent habit of passing within a few yards 

 of the tree, I never remarked any thing extraordinary in its foliage till last 

 summer. Some acorns which I gathered from the tree last autumn have 

 come up this spring, and bear the ordinary foliage, without exhibiting any 

 of the peculiarities of the parent. Is the above variety worth propagating ? 



