303 



FIELD NOTES. 



MOLLUSCA. 



A Hon ater L. as a Wart Curer. — I have just heard for 

 the second time from the same man how he was cm'ed of a 

 large wart by the apphcation of a black slug. In 1852 or 

 thereabouts he had a very bad wart on the back of his hand. 

 An old woman suggested to his mother that he should see a 

 local tinsmith [Richardson, of Queen Street] about it. He 

 was taken, and the tinsmith rubbed the hand gently, and told 

 him to get up early next — or some other — morning "before the 

 sunrise, and look for a black slug. The wart had to be rubbed 

 by the slug, and then the slug had to be impaled on a hawthorn 

 spine, and as the slug melted away, so would the wart. ' So 

 it was,' he declared to me, though he could not say how long 

 it took to disappear. In Rhys' ' Celtic Folklore,' in the first 

 volume, this treatment is mentioned, but the doctor's inform- 

 ant forgot what became of the slug. The whitethorn here 

 has no magic significance, I think. The rest is, of course, 

 sympathy. — S. L. Petty, Ulverston. 



— : o : — 

 COLEOPTERA, 

 Gracilia minuta F. at Selby. — I beg to record the occur- 

 rence of this interesting little longicorn here as an importation, 

 a local fruiterer calling my attention to hundreds which w^ere 

 in a hamper conveying French-grown carrots. I submitted 

 specimens to the Rev. A. Thornle}^ who, quoting ' Fowler,' 

 writes — ' In dead twigs in hedges^ etc., and often in old hampers 

 etc., local, common, having been recorded for London district, 

 Devon, Hastings, Bristol, Cambridge, Burton-on-Trent, Sun- 

 derland (two specimens) perhaps imported. (Not recorded 

 from Scotland).' Mr .Thornley has recorded it himself from 

 Notts, and Lincoln. Has it been recorded from Yorks. ' im- 

 ports ' or otherwise ? * — John F. Musham, F.E.S., Selby. 



— : o : — 

 BIRDS. 



Brown Rook in N. Lines. — A brown, almost chocolate- 

 coloured rook has recently been observed at the rookery near 

 Baysgarth Park. Mr. A. B. Hall informs me he has seen it 

 several times, and that Mr. Frank Bygott, who resides near the 

 rookery, has a similarly coloured bird, stuffed, which he shot 

 many years ago. — G. W. Mason, Barton-on-Humber. 



* The species is recorded for Hull by Mr. T. Stainforth in ' Trans. Hull 

 Field Nat. Club,' Vol. 3, pt. i, 1903, p. 109 ; and has been taken at Clap- 

 ham and Thackley by Mr. F. Booth ; recorded in the Y. N.U. Annual Report, 

 1908, p. 21. — Eds. 



IQ09 Aug. I. 



