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The Museum Gazette 



TO THE EDITOR OF THE "MUSEUM GAZETTE." 



Dear Sir, — I am enclosing a list of some of the objects in your 

 February frontispiece of the MUSEUM Gazette, as far as I have 

 been able to identify them. 



I have also been studying the skulls, but have not managed to write 

 an account of them. 



In the January number you give a list of flowers that may be 

 found in that month. You might be interested in the fact that on 

 January 3, the day after the heavy snows disappeared, I found no less 

 than ten plants fully in flower. They were : red and white dead- 

 nettle, groundsell, common chickweed, shepherd's purse, field 

 speedwell, Buxbaum's speedwell, dandelion, annual meadow- 

 grass, and Euphorbia peplus. On January 10 I found the small 

 stinging-nettle (it is generally very early here), and on January 12, 

 the wild beaked parsley. Except for these flowers, most have been 

 very backward this year, including hazel and elder, in this part of 

 Cambridgeshire. 



I should be glad if you could recommend to me a cheap book on 

 British Hymenomycetes. I have just commenced studying Fungi in 

 earnest, and have been much stimulated by the Museum Gazette. 



I may say how much I like the Museum Gazette, and I wish it 

 every success. 



" Penwith? Hills Road, Cambridge. I am, yours sincerely, 



February 25, 1907. W. N. Edwards. 



[The best books we can recommend are Stevenson's " British 

 Fungi " (2 vols), and Massee's " British Fungus Flora," vols, i., ii., iii. 

 The latter work may be purchased second-hand for twelve shillings, 

 and is certainly the best we have. — Ed. Gazette.] 



Mr. G. H. S. — Thanks for letter. You will, we think, find some 

 useful information as to the relations between atmospheric and 

 terrestrial electricity in former numbers of the Gazette. During 

 a thunderstorm all terrestrial objects become more or less charged, 

 and the best conductors most so. You are, of course, quite right 

 in saying that electricity is "not a fluid," but the term is convenient 

 and is not likely to mislead any one. You write that you. "believe 

 it has been lately established that beech trees are no more immune 

 from lightning than oaks, but I have, unfortunately, forgotten my 

 authority for this statement." You will find this subject also fully 

 discussed and statistics quoted in an early number of the Gazette 

 (see pp. 118 and 119). Their comparative immunity depends in part 

 upon what other more attractive objects stand near them. Oak trees, 

 with dead and wet boughs upon them, probably serve as efficient 

 protectors. Most certainly it is very seldom that a beech is struck in 

 England. 



