64 Bay ford : Chrysomela gcettingensis in South Yorkshire. 



impossible that the Daffodil, the Viburnum, the Hop — ay ! other 

 integ'ers in the local flora of To-Day, may bear some relation as 

 effect from cause with medieval appropriators of the land. 



But, certainly from a much more recent time must date the 

 American Snowberry {Symphoricarpus racemosus Michx.) noted 

 by me an hour later in profusion in the hedge of the highroad 

 north of Colton bridge over the railway towards Steeton Hall, 

 now a large farmhouse. This must have been introduced with 

 quickset for the fence, but is now there for good, or until the 

 vicinal boundaries are done away with. At the Hall itself 

 Euphorbia Lathyris, the Caper-spurge (the semina were formerly 

 used as a pickle), fruits as freely and sows itself, as the Walnut 

 does both here and around Thorp Arch. Lastly, mirabile dictu, 

 visiting a while back — not on this occasion — the old Roman 

 Way of ' Rudgate ' just north of St. Helen's Ford and south of 

 Walton, I actually saw 'with these very eyes' a few plants 

 of the Roman Nettle (Urtica pilulifera), the seeds of which 

 must have been brought with the baggage-waggons of the 

 Latin cohorts, and survived unrotted in the pavement over a 

 thousand years ! The ' way ' had been disturbed for its stones, 

 and lo ! the Nettle with the Vervein had resuscitated. This 

 makes the tale of a singular list of ' suspects.' 



Of interesting indigens the district can claim few enough. 

 On the inner courtyard and office walls of Steeton Hall (near 

 South Milford) the Black Spleenwort (Asplenium Trichomanes) 

 grows plentifully, with a very little A. Adiantum-nigrum — probably 

 its nearest locality to Leeds. About the ' diaper ' stones set in 

 the walls of Ryther church the Wallrue (Asplenium Ruta-muraria) 

 flourishes, with Ranunculus sceleratus in the flood-trench below 

 the curious raised causeway along which worshippers of old 

 time could alone approach the ancient Saxon-arch'd kirk, and 

 it was also a plant of the dew-pond or cattle-plash within the 

 rectangle of 'the Daffy field' before-mentioned. Stachys palus- 

 tris was, I saw, in cornfield, mangel-broad and polder-dike, 

 everywhere — telling likewise its tale of lands liable to inundation. 



14. 9. '01. 



NOTE on COLEOPTERA. 



Chrysomela gcettingensis in South Yorkshire.— While walking 

 from Edlington Church to the wood on the afternoon of the 1st August 

 I picked up a dead specimen of this insect. 



As Fowler considers the locality 'near Burton-on-Trent ' the most 

 northerly one, disregarding - that of Stephens for ' Edinburg'h ' as 'probably 

 an error' it may be as well to place the present occurrence on record as 

 early as may be. — E. G. Bayford, Barnsley, 12th August 1901. 



Naturalist, 



