HA RD WICKE'S SCIENCE- G OSSIP. 



2 I 



journal, if they have seen or heard of specimens of 

 this rare and almost extinct bird during the past year. 

 Readers dwelling in and about Tpswich are invited 

 to view the specimen, a female in a very fine state of 

 preservation, in the Ipswich Museum. — C. Morley. 



Earthworms.— It may interest some of your 

 readers to know that among a consignment of earth- 

 worms I collected last November, at Beechwood, 

 near Malahide, Co. Dublin, and sent to the Rev. 

 Hilderic Friend, F.L.S., to be identified, there 

 were five worms new to Ireland and one to science. 

 Mr. Friend has very kindly sent me the following 

 list : — Lumbricus terrestris, L. ; L. rubellus, Hoffm. ; 

 L. purpureus. Eisen ; Allolobophora longa, Ade ; A. 

 trapezoidea, Duges, new to the Irish list ;A. chlorotica, 

 Savigny ; A. muscosa, Eisen, new to the Irish list; 

 A. turgida, Eisen ; A. subrubiaenda, Eisen, new to 

 the Irish list ; Deudrobcena Eiseni, Levinsen, new to 

 the Irish list ; D, arborea, Eisen, new to the Irish 

 list ; D. rosea, Friend, the new worm, first found 

 here, subsequently in Gloucestershire ; Allurus tetrtz- 

 drus, Savigny; A. Utragonurtcs, Friend. — J. Trum- 

 bull. 



BOTANY. 



Preservation of Colours in Dried 

 Flowers. — In reply to the query of I. G. in your 

 December issue, as to the better preservation of the 

 colour of certain Campanulas accidentally pressed be- 

 tween fly-leaf and cover of book, I fancy the cause 

 lies, not in the colour, but the glossiness of the paper, 

 which would cause it to be non-absorbent, as I find 

 from experience that plants dried between highly 

 glazed paper lose their colours much less than when 

 dried in the orthodox fashion. — J. L. 



Casual and Alien Plants. — Under the above 

 heading an interesting notice appears in the Decem- 

 ber number of Science-Gossip. It is very curious 

 to note the way in which these plants appear in a 

 neighbourhood, and sometimes establish themselves 

 without its being possible to trace the manner in 

 which they came. For instance I have found 

 Amoracia rusticana in all sorts of odd spots, some- 

 times a very long way from paths or houses. Last 

 year I discovered a single plant of Lepidium ruderale 

 close to a small foot-way almost in the heart of 

 Leicester, and on looking again this season I found 

 some forty or fifty specimens. This is, if I am not 

 mistaken, usually a sea-side flower, and so far as I 

 could make out there had been no soil moved to or 

 from the place where it was growing for a long while, 

 nor do I know any other reason which would account 

 for its presence. I also found it in July between the 

 metals on the G.E.R. near Bramford, but there, of 

 course, it might have been carried with ballast. 



Hesperis matronalis is sometimes found, generally 

 escaped from a garden not far off. Linum tisitatissi- 

 mum I have seen in an open drive through a wood, 

 and in many other places, but even though flax be 

 not cultivated in the neighbourhood, there are several 

 ways in which it might have occurred. Melilotus 

 alba suddenly appeared one year in a brick-yard near 

 Kibworth, in Leicestershire, but was not permanent. 

 My father, Captain Howard, observed and gathered 

 a Potentilla, I think P. hirta, on the mud which 

 had been taken out of the river Gipping, between 

 Ipswich and Claydon, and which had been left 

 beside the towing-path. While living at Wher- 

 stead, in Suffolk, I once brought some specimens of 

 Sedum Anglicum from near Felixstowe, and having 

 kept some, threw the others away. The next year 

 the tiles on one side of a shed near-by bore many 

 specimens of this plant, but I do not know if it is still 

 in existence there. At Saddington Reservoir in 

 Leicestershire, some years ago, one or two plants of 

 Qinanthe phellandrium made their appearance. The 

 water-keeper was one day going to pull them up, but 

 a gentleman who was boating, persuaded him to 

 leave them. The water now is full of CE. phellan- 

 drium. Vinca major is well established in many 

 places, particularly round old shrubberies. Hyoscy- 

 anms niger seems to turn up in a very uncertain 

 fashion, several specimens being found in a parish 

 one year, then disappearing, and perhaps reappearing 

 after some years. I have known several instances of 

 this. In an old gravel-pit near Smeeton, in Leicester- 

 shire, I dropped on to Orobanche elatior. It seemed 

 to have been there some considerable time, but I 

 know no other spot in the country where it grows. 

 I gathered at Felixstowe, some years ago, a single 

 shoot of Asparagus officinalis, but I never found any 

 more there. It used, however, to grow abundantly on 

 the banks of the Orwell, some miles away, but I 

 believe, is now destroyed by a sewage outfall. This 

 list might be multiplied considerably by including 

 such plants as Saponaria officinalis, which is growing 

 in great abundance by the roadside at Bramford and 

 one or two neighbouring villages, but which is evi- 

 dently a stray from the cottage gardens hard by. 

 I may mention, however, that a Claytonia, which I 

 think is C. siberica, was forwarded to me from near 

 Buxton, where it was flourishing, to all appearance 

 wild. Many of the examples quoted above may 

 have been carried by birds, by the wind, or by 

 streams, but for some I can think of no probable 

 means of transportation. In the Rev. F. B. Zincke's 

 book, entitled " Wherstead," the author mentions, 

 that on cleaning out the mud from a pond in Wher- 

 stead Park where no water-cress grew, a great 

 number of young plants of N. officinale quickly 

 sprang into life on the half-dried heaps of soil. 

 Would this fact account for any of the occurrences of 

 these casual or alien plants ? — Lawrence Creaghe- 

 Haward. 



