i6o lees: notes on the list of ingleton plants. 



NOTES— ORNITHOLOG Y. 



Pied Flycatcher near Alford, Lincolnshire.— On the 27th April and the 

 three following days a male Pied Flycatcher {Aliiscicapa atricapilla L.) was seen in 

 and near the same garden where the one reported last year was noticed by me. 

 This on the authority of Mr. Hargraves, the owner and occupier. — ^Jas. Eardj.ev 

 Mason, Alford, 3rd May, 1888. 



Birds on Heligoland. — Mr. Cordeaux mentions eight resident or breeding 

 species of birds on Heligoland, but he does not mention the Oyster-catcher 

 {HceJiiatoptis osfralegiis), eggs of which species, I was told by the proprietor of the 

 restaurant on Sandy Island, he had found there; and also some Tern's eggs— no 

 doubt the Common Tern, as, on walking to the end of the island where it 

 terminates in a sandy promontary, we found a few hovering over the waves, 

 which we thought might have eggs, but it is needless to say did not find any 

 without a dog. — J. H. GuRNEY, Junr., Keswick Hall, Norwich, May ist, 1888, 



Nighting-ale near Beverley. — Mr. Boyes writes me on the 24th inst. 

 that they had a Nightingale {Daiilias hiscinia) at Beverley for a short time, but he 

 fears it has either been caught or disturbed. — W. Ea(;i.e Clarke, May 26th, 1888. 



NOTE— BOTANY. 



Notes on the List of Ingleton Plants (Page 119).— Mr. Leach's list of 

 a dozen plants said to have grown about Ingleton fifteen ^ to twenty years ago 

 contains the names of two which it is most unlikely (looking to their preferences 

 as evidenced by their known distribution) ever grew thereabouts at all. That 

 miscalled '' Aspleniiim germaiiiciifji ' was doubtless the alternate-pinnuled depau- 

 perate form of the Wall-Rue {A. }-Hta-/jiiiraria) into which it sports, though 

 rarely; and, again, the ^ Aspidiiim lonchitis'' of Kingsdale, was almost as certainly 

 that very narrow, stiff-fronded, spinulose variety of Aspidiutti aciileatiun, which (as 

 its name A. lonchiiidioides shows) has not only a likeness to the true ' Holly' fern, 

 but has, in fact, been often mistaken and misrecorded for it before now. 



Then, whatever is meant by the ' solitary clump of Epihbmm Jiirsnttim ' in 

 Kingsdale, on Gragreth side? The name belongs to the very common 

 ' Codlins-and- Cream ' which bedecks the sides of our water-courses in late summer, 

 and cannot well be a printer's error. Probably the lovely wand-like red-spiked 

 EpilobiiDn aitgustifoliiint was meant — it grows nearer Ribblehead, in the swallow- 

 holes in a few places — but the name, at the least, reveals some faultiness in 

 Mr. Leach's memory, and if an error in one name, why not in another I 



Again, the Solomon's Seal of the ' Helks ' is not ' Polygonattini t}niltiflorti!)i^ 

 but the indigenous P. officinale, known there since Gerarde's time (1597). It 

 still occurs in the less accessible clefts. 



And yet again, Mr. Leach not being ' aware of any other place in the North 

 of England ' where DapJiue 7nezereu7ii grows ' wild,' does not, happily, make it a 

 fact. The Mezereon has been known as a denizen of rocky woods in West York 

 since 1805, two localities, Feizor and Linn Gill near Ribblehead being not a dozen 

 miles from Ingleton. The ' Helks ' has probably also nurtured odd and occasional 

 plants, possibly truly w ild, but more likely bird-sown, from an equally remote time. 

 Birds are very fond of the seeds of the berries, which attract at a time when 'hips ' 

 and ' haws ' are scarce, and they mostly get the berries in gardens (have done 

 certainly for 200 years) to void them in the undergrowth where they roost. The 

 rationale of the Mezereon's increasing frequency is thus explainable, but the whole 

 question (like that of the original indigenity of the Ciooseberry and Wild Cherry, 

 or the reverse) is full of difficulty. 



Lastly, the Fly Orchis {Op/irys nmscifera) has been known at Skirreth and 

 Thornton Force since 1746 (Blackstone). Mr. John Willis found it up to 1873 to 

 my laiowledge. The locality given so vaguely as ' between Ingleton and Kirkby 

 Lonsdale" for Cetei-ach is in Westmorland. Did Mr. Leach know this? It has- 

 been on record since i860, Isaac Hindson the discoverer, I believe ; but Richard 

 Clapham reported the fern from Chapel-le-Dale in 1861. It is not at all unlikely 

 that it yet onlingers in sunny inaccessible spots on the scars. The remaining six 

 montane plants named by Mr. Leach all grow about Ingleton still. — F. A. Lees, 



Naturalist, 



