9° 



MISCELLANEOUS NOTt>. 



NO TE—B TA N K 



Habenaria bifolia flore-pleno.— A beautiful specimen of the 'double 

 flowered' Butterfly Orchis was found by Mr. Edgar Stabler in Brigsteer Wood, 

 near Kendal, Westmorland, on June 16th last. I enclose a flower. — G. Stabler, 

 Levens, Milnthorpe, Westmorland. 



Seems to be the fusion of two flowers, not a double flower in the ordinary 

 sense of the term. — T.G.B. 



NO TE—H YMENO P TERA . 



Sirex gigas and S. juvencus. — In reference to Lieut. -Col. Haworth-Booth 

 note on Sirex gigas in * The Naturalist ' for February, I believe I am correct in 

 stating that in 1887, the year he mentions, an unusual number of Sirex g*&* s 

 occurred in East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. I obtained one specimen at Brid- 

 lington and exhibited it at a meeting of the Leeds Naturalists' Club and was then 

 informed that it was the fourteenth specimen recorded by members of that Society 

 during the year. The large cargoes of foreign timber discharged at Hull are 

 probably the medium by which the insect is introduced into this part of England. 

 A somewhat rarer capture was S. Juvencus, which I found in an office fireplace in 

 the heart of Leeds. The only specimen recorded in Donovan's day was taken in 

 an equally curious locality — the top window of a room in the Strand. — Henry B. 

 Wilson, Westfield, Armley, February 4th, 1896. 



NOTE— FISHES. 



Large Kelt in Lake Lancashire. — A big Kelt was caught in a stream 

 which afterwards joins the Duddon, weighing 30 lbs. ! which means a 50 lbs. 

 salmon if it had been helped into Salter water. Dr. J. W. Fawcitt, of Broughton- 



in-Fumess, has its photo. — S. Lister Petty, Ulverston, December 20th, 1895. 



NOTE— MAMMALIA AND MOLLUSC A. 



Otters Feeding on Freshwater Mussels.— Mr. F. B. Whitlock has sent 



me a number of shells of Anodonta cygnea which he collected on an island in the 

 river Soar, presumably not far from Beeston, Notts, asking me to note how 

 the edges are bitten by some creature in opening them. He states that he has no 

 doubt that this was the work of Otters {Intra lutra) y an animal which inhabit- 

 that river, because at the spot where the shells were found the river is deep, the 

 banks dropping sheer down into a depth of four feet of water, so that it seems 

 impossible for Rats to have brought them up and then dragged them to land. 

 Although the evidence is so far purely circumstantial, there can be little doubt 

 that Mr. Whitlock ? s opinion is correct. My friend Mr. John W. Taylor, F.L.S., 

 who has seen the shells, informs me that the manner in which they are bitten— all 

 round the outer edges — is different from that in which shells of the same specie 

 sent him from Nottinghamshire by Mr. C. T. Musson some years were opened by- 

 Rats. The Rats had bitten the shells open at one end, and thereby extracted the 

 contents. It would be of interest to confirm by direct ocular observation the cor- 

 rectness of Mr, Whitlock's opinion. — W. Denisox ROEBUCK, Leeds, Feb. 21st. 



— v ■ *- w * 



NOTES AND NEWS. 



Sympathetic and graphically interesting memoirs of the late Lord De Tabley 

 are published in the Athenceum for November 30th (by Mr, Theodore Watts), 

 and in the Contemporary Review for January (by Mr. Edmund Gosse)— also in 

 the February Journal of Botany, the latter including a list of his deceased lordship's 

 botanical papers, 1869— 1877, many of them concerned with the flora of Cheshire. 



Naturalist* 



