2 1 8 The Museum Gazette 



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long by 5J in. in maximum width. They grew from shoots 

 springing from the side of a stump of a tree which had been 

 felled the previous autumn. The tops of the shoots had been 

 trimmed off, probably in June or July. Other leaves from the 

 same spot almost equalled these in size. Mr. Harry Leslie 

 recorded in Science Gossip (December, 1871) oak leaves from a 

 pollard oak, measuring 11 in. long by 9 in. wide. Mr. Pratt, 

 of Bayswater, gathered oak leaves io|- in. long in a lane near 

 Ilfracombe, in the summer of 1904." 



Garden Slugs, 



The three common slugs of our gardens are the following ; 

 Avion subfuscus, A. hovtensis, and Agviolimax agrestis. The 

 most prolific of this trio of pests is the last-named. It is 

 the little cream-white " dew-slug," easily known by its colour 

 and copious white mucus. Sometimes the body is dotted 

 with black, and occasionally specimens may be found of an 

 uniformly dark tint. Avion hortensis is of dark colour with 

 longitudinal greyish or black bands; slime yellowish. Avion 

 subfuscus is larger than either of the above, and is reddish- 

 brown with two faint lateral blackish bands. It may be at 

 once recognised by the saffron -yellow mucus. The eggs, 

 young and adults of all the above are especially abundant in 

 August. During dry weather they hybernate beneath stones, 

 under sticks and in the dead stalks of dahlias, &c, emerging 

 in large numbers after showers. They should then be care- 

 fully collected and killed in boiling water. 



Sycamore Leaf Fungus. 



The large black spots so frequently seen on sycamore leaves 

 in August and the following months denote the presence of 

 the fungus Rhytisma acevinum. An excellent article on this 

 leaf parasite, by Mr. W. B. Grove, may be found in 

 the twenty-second volume of Science Gossip (1886). " The 



