Examples of the Wood- Ant. By Jas. Hardy. 215 



green. The largest is 1^ ineh. long, by more than ^ an inch 

 broad. Several of the flatter examples have a suture or seam 

 down one edge, as if they were metamorphosed leaves (as mor- 

 phologically they are) folded in the middle, and combined at the 

 margins. When opened they appear like pods, and a consider- 

 able number have two (not one, as might have been expected 

 from sloes having mostly one stone) abortive seeds attached at 

 the end nearest the stalk. Their taste is very bitter, and being 

 kept they smell strongly of prussic acid. 



A curling up of the leaf occurs in the blackthorn, tinted with 

 the pale-green and red tints on these monster sloes, as if minor 

 imitations of them, which is occasioned by colonies of leaf mites 

 {Phytopti.) The sloe bushes came prematurely into blossom this 

 season, but I saw none similarly affected to these two clumps. 

 Before summer these mock -fruits had dried up and become black. 



Mr Charles Watson, Bunse, writes me, of date 19th June, 

 1882:— 



In looking over a supplement to Jolmson's Gardeners' Dictionary which 

 has lately been published, I came upon an article on ' Bladder Plums ' 

 with an illustration which is exactly similar to the sloes you had at Hadding- 

 ton the other day. The article proceeds thus : — ' When the other parts of 

 the flower have fallen off the ovary turns yellowish and commences to swell 

 at rather a rapid rate finally assuming the form of distorted plums . . . 

 but instead of being plump and fleshy, they are merely hollow bags filled 

 with air. This distorted growth is caused by a fungus which after a few 

 weeks develops as a greenish mould on the surface, the bladder then blackens 

 and shrivels and speedily decays.' 



There is a reference to the Gardeners' Chronicle for 1872, p.p. 940, for 

 fuller information. 



The illustration is from a painting by Miss Bickinson. 



On Examples of the Wood-Ant (Formica rufa, L.) from 

 Yardhope Woodfoot, Northumberland, with notice of 

 Formica umbrata, Nyl. By James Haedy. 



Mr M. Aekle, Carrick in Eedesdale, of date July 17th, 1882, 

 forwarded a number of the females and neuters of this remark- 

 able Ant — "the Pismire" — which we have not on the Scottish 

 side— from the great colony at Yardhope Woodfoot, in the wilds 

 behind Harbottle, which was observed some years since by his 

 grandfather, Mr Thomas Arkle, Highlaws, at whose instance 

 the specimens were sent. 



