6o Mosley : Hen Harrier Breeding in East YorksJiire. 



A stud}- of the anatomical characters will show that this tree 

 is strictly xerophilous (droug-ht-loving-), while a review of the 

 chemical composition reveals the very important fact that it 

 differs seriously from that of the vast majority of our native and 

 denizen trees and shrubs. The capital feature is the vig-orous 

 vitality — the constitutional robustness evinced by the perennial 

 g-reenness of the bark, the wealth of starch in the leaves, the 

 activity of the sieve-tubes, the redundancy of fruit, and the 

 magnificently perfected wood as a detail of the powerful faculty 

 of lig"nification which predominates in every org'an of the fabric. 

 The consummation of org-anisation is attested by the unitary 

 type of bundle in the petiole, while the provision of a special 

 weather-resisting- substance (ilicene) in bark, leaves, and young- 

 shoots ensures that the rig-our of external conditions shall be 

 nullified, that, e.g-. , the accumulation of starch In the leaves 

 shall not depend on the intensity of the illumination which they 

 receive at any particular period, but rather on a species of 

 hereditary periodicity connected with the ratio of the forming-- 

 rate to the using--rate, and with the ease of mig-ration to other 

 parts of the plant. The perfect vegetation of the Holly tree is 

 expressed chemically by the steady increase of lignin and by the 

 diminution as we have seen of the albumenoids and insoluble 

 principles whose chemical actions are accomplished. Even the 

 leaves of over one year old contain very little silica (less even 

 than Scotch Pine needles of same age) — a negative but perfectly 

 reliable sign of the maintenance of active vitality ; and more- 

 over, when they actually die and wither on the tree their tints 

 or shades are not those of principles allied to chlorophyll (as in 

 the Elm and Sycamore), but are derivatives of a tannin which in 

 cases of extreme oxidation assumes a ver}- dark brown, not red- 

 brown, shade. It may be useful to add that the original 

 suggestion of Jussieu and Brongniart that the true systematic 

 position of the Holly is in the Gentianales alliance, and not near 

 the Spindle-trees or the Milkworts, is fully supported and con- 

 firmed by the results of the chemical analysis. 



BIRDS. 



Hen Harrier Breeding in East Yorkshire. — I have recently 

 inspected a pair of these birds in a case with four young, and 

 have obtained satisfactory evidence that they were killed, the 

 young being taken from the nest, on Baildon Moor, about 1863. 

 — S. L. Mosley. 



Naturalist, 



