50 
NATURE NOTES 
doing so. There is, in this parish, one fine tulip tree, but no more. We all know 
the peculiar shape of its leaves ; Mr. Ruskin, I seem to remember, finds fault 
with them because, instead of ending like most leaves in a single point, they have 
a re-entering angle. 
Now I have once at least found these leaves along a road to reach which they 
must have travelled down a garden, across a small park, and also across a 
meadow, at the further side of which they must, I think, have cleared its northern 
hedge, dropping in the road on the further side, where I saw them. Measuring 
the distance on a 25-in. scale map, I reckon it full 700 yards ; there is a slight, 
but very gradual, descent. These leaves, I take it, must have been torn from the 
highest part of the tree, and not merely swept up from the ground like those of 
January 23, for they must have cleared many other trees in the garden, park and 
meadow. 
But the leaves on this windy January day were interesting for a different 
reason ; the effect of a few hours .action of the wind upon them seemed to me so 
much like that produced in the sea on shells, sand and shingle in the course of 
many long years. The points of resemblance were many. Where the wind 
rushed forward between the roadside hedges there was a picture of a strong 
tide-flow through a narrow channel between rocks. When I noticed some 
bits of roadside swept nearly bare and others banked with leaves, there was the 
same resemblance to the action of the sea-currents. Eddies, backwaters, and 
whirlpools were all represented. When I saw how the wind was driving through 
openings in the hedge, sweeping a small space clear and heaping up the leaves to 
right and left, there was a picture of a stream from the land breaking through a 
sand-bank and forming spits or ridges on either side. I came to a point where 
two roads met, with the wind blowing (though not with equal directness) down 
both of them. The hedge corner at the point of the junction headed about S.W., 
and here was a projecting promontory of dead leaves several yards long. This 
might be compared to the growing shingle point of Dungeness, or, still better, to 
the shell beach at the north end of the island of Herm, piled up by the tides 
sweeping northward on the two sides of the island. The road along which the 
wind came most directly was almost bare of leaves up to the point of meeting ; 
along the other there was a succession of bays and headlands, all modelled, so to 
say, in dead leaves. 
The analogy is a very obvious one, but it seems to me to have a good deal of 
truth in it, and perhaps it may be thought not quite without interest. 
Olham Parsonage, Maidslone. F. W. Millard. 
478 . Notes on the Ealing Bird Sanctuary. -Apart from the birds 
themselves, of which some twenty species nest in or around the wood, there are 
many other interesting matters to be met with. Although the flower-hawkers 
have left us but three plants of the primrose, which we treasure and do our best 
to preserve, there are in the spring multitudes of bluebells, and of recent years 
we have succeeded in preventing the greater number of these from being picked. 
As the roots of the pretty wood-anemone are not so easily disposed of as those of 
primroses there are patches also of these to be met with here and there. We 
have also been lucky enough to find one or two orchids, and the banks of me.adow 
sweet in the summer are, like the willow’-herbs, a sight to behold. With the 
exception of a few elms on the outskirts all the large trees are oaks, yet the under- 
growth is so varied that it is a never ending source of interest. In fact, the whole 
place is a veritable paradise for the Nature student. More than one dormouse’s 
nest has been found. We picked up the skeleton of a weasel, and a stoat which 
had been disturbed was seen to come back and attempt to carry away some young 
rabbits from the small burrow which their mother had made for their reception. 
Then there are (juite a number of grass snakes, and it is a very curious sight to see 
one of these swim across the pond, though some of them are not game to do this 
and prefer to hide in the mud. Insect life is very varied ; numerous moths were 
attracted by “ sugar ” in the summer evenings and .several .sj^ecies of green grass- 
hoppers really belonging to the locust family also made their appearance. It is 
hoped in time that a complete flora and fauna of the wood may be written, and 
there seems no doubt but that the results will be well worth the trouble. 
Wii KRK.n Mark Weiih. 
