406 Mr. Embleton's Miscellanea Zoologica et Botanica. 



effects which these now so-called improvements have produced 

 on the climate and soil, and the fertility and increase of the 

 latter. These Clubs have yet to write the Natural History 

 of Great Britain." (^Memoirs of Strickland, p. ccliii.) 



Note. — I have recently examined three packages of seeds, picked from wool 

 at Cxxmledge Mill, Berwickshire; in the first, (European), there are tea 

 different sorts, one a Medicago, another Camelina sativa ; in the second, (also 

 European), twenty-two different kinds, a few of them of English plants; in the 

 third. (.East Indian), twelve sorts. J. H. 



Miscellanea Zoologica et Botanica. By R. Embleton. 



The present season is one remarkable so far, for the high 

 and equal temperature, and the absence of those sudden 

 changes so characteristic of our climate. From various 

 accounts reported from many different localities it appears to 

 have a marked effect upon the appearance of many species ; 

 and so far as my own observations have extended they agree 

 in many particulars : thus, in regard to the swallows, they 

 are in this locality not one third of the number observed last 

 year, although earlier in appearance. At Embleton, the 

 chimney-swallows returned to their nest on the 18th of April, 

 which is the earliest date of upwards of thirty years observa- 

 tion. The wheatear and other visitants are by no means so 

 plentiful ; and thrushes and blackbirds are seldom to be seen, 

 and only one nest of the thrush has been reported to me ; and 

 very few of the smaller birds have built in the shrubberies or 

 gardens as they usually do. The very few specimens that 

 have again this year been observed of the common Nettle 

 Butterfly is somewhat remarkable, if one considers the number 

 that were seen in years previous to the two last ; but the 

 White, so destructive to our gardens, is much more numerous 

 than last year. The season has been so far most favourable 

 for the florist and the botanist. The spring flowers in the 

 garden never received the slightest check; and I never knew 

 them flower more beautifully, or continue so long ; whilst our 

 wild flowers have appeared weeks earlier than is their usual. 

 On the 24th of March, I received from Mr. Gregson of Low- 

 linn, abundance of flowers of Viola odorata collected by him 

 on a sheltered bank near his house, a new locality in this 

 district ; and on the 30th of April, a branch of May, fully 

 expanded, was collected between Beadnell and Chathill ; it is 

 seldom that it has deserved its name so justly as this year ; 



