MISCELLANEOUS NOTICES AND OBSERVATIONS. 513 



Eckinoeardium cordatum, — though found abundantly cast up on 

 some beaches in our district, has not been commonly met with 

 in a living state. A week ago, when dredging two miles off 

 Marsden, in a depth of about ten fathoms, I brought up a large 

 number of specimens (at least fifty) in a small quantity of mate- 

 rial, not exceeding, probably, fourteen pounds in weight. The 

 bottom consisted of muddy sand, mixed with a large proportion 

 of decaying vegetable matter and coal dust, and with the excep- 

 tion of a few small Amphipoda and Cumacea, together with 

 numerous small sand-stars and brittle -stars, contained no other 

 living things of more than microscopic size. The specimens of 

 Echinocardium, some of which have been sent to the Museum 

 of the Natural History Society, were much under the usual size, 

 the longest being only one inch and three-eighths in length. — 

 George S. Brady, Sunderland, June 17th, 1872. 



Early appearance of a Bat. — Waterton, in his Essays on 

 Natural History, records the appearance of a bat in Wakefield 

 on the 3rd of January, 1848; it may therefore possibly be 

 worthy of record that, on the 13th of January, 1871, when the 

 thermometer in a north exposure (there was no sunshine) stood 

 at 30° Fahrenheit, and had been, during the night and up to 

 8 a.m., as low as 20°, a long-eared bat (Vespertilio auritus, Linn.) 

 was seen flying about in a shrubbery at Denham, Bucks, about 

 an hour after mid-day. It was seen by five persons, two of 

 whom, including the writer, were able to distinguish the species. 

 ~-Edward Mounsey, Denham, ldth January, 1871. 



Sirex gigas, taken near Wooler. — I have just received a fine 

 large female of Sirex gigas, Linn., which was captured in a fir 

 wood at Langleyford, near Wooler, by Mr. James Hardy last 

 week, and, at his request, will mount it for our Museum collec- 

 tion. It is a rare insect with us, and the few examples I have 

 seen had mostly been got on the banks of the Tyne, where they 

 might have been brought in timber-laden vessels. This, how- 

 ever, must be, I think, truly indigenous. The larvas live upon 

 the solid wood of fir trees, to which when numerous they do 

 great damage, by running longitudinal galleries in their stems, 



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