NATURAL HISTORY NOTES & QUERIES. 115 
through local Secretaries to Mr. Fulwood, Coombe House, Richmond, S.W., 
or to the Secretary, 9, Adam Street, Adelphi, W.C. The price of the brooch 
is 3s., solitaire is. gd., pin is. 6d., to which 3d. for postage should be added 
to cover registration. 
Clapton, Lower Lee Valley Branch. — The Rambling Club in connec- 
tion with this branch commenced their field meetings on April 29th, jointly with 
the Selborne Field Club, by a social gathering and walk through Richmond and 
Petersham Parks. The second meeting was held on May 6th, when members 
met at Theydon Bois, being joined by representatives from the Lower Thames 
Valley and Northern Heights branches, and enjoyed a delightful ramble through 
this part of Epping Forest, a full report of which has appeared in the Hackney 
Mercury. 
Pinner Branch. — A meeting was held at Clonard on April l8th, by kind 
invitation of Mrs. Skilbeck. An address was given by Mr. Bland Sutton, 
F.R.C.S., on “Teeth of Animals — their nature and uses.” 
North Wexford. — We are glad to learn that a branch of the Society, to be 
known as the “Ferns” branch, is about to be established in North Wexford. 
Dr. G. E. Greene, Ferns, is acting as hon. secretary. 
NATURAL HISTORY NOTES AND QUERIES. 
In a Vicarage Garden. — Some fifteen or sixteen years ago I met by 
the road side with a few plants of lady’s smock [Cardamine pratensis) bearing 
double flowers. I took up a few and planted them on a small damp lawn twenty- 
five yards by twenty, in a retired part of my garden, and hoped to see the pretty 
blossoms in the following year, but was disappointed and thought no more about 
them. To my great surprise, last year but one I found that little lawn all at 
once beautiful with a great number of fair, large and vigorous blossoming stalks, 
the flowers not only double, but also proliferous, many of the flowers producing 
from their centre other smaller flowers on slender stalks. This year again the 
little lawn is pretty thickly enamelled with these beautiful flowers, and of course 
the grass is not to be mown until the blossoming time is over. 
An explanation of this phenomenon may be proposed in the fact that it has 
been observed that the leaves of these double-flowering plants arch themselves 
over down to the ground, rooting and producing new plants. Possibly those I 
planted so long ago may have been too busy spreading themselves by layers every 
year to find any inclination to flower until two years ago, when they suddenly 
burst into flower. But the ways of plants are very mysterious, and past finding 
out. A similar phenomenon has taken place in my garden with wdld wood 
anemones, of which I planted some a good many years ago on a moist shady 
bank, when they disappeared and were forgotten until two years ago, when they 
suddenly burst into flower in some abundance. 
May I mention another interesting fact respecting wild flowers in this pretty 
vicarage garden. Years ago visiting Kydal Mount, there were pointed out to me 
a few plants of white Herb Robert, which Wordsworth had planted, and of which 
he had been fond. I successfully begged for one small plant, which I carried 
home and planted by a httle shady waterfall, and now I have the white Herb 
Robert from the poet’s garden growing in abundance in my own. Selbornians 
who have anything in the same line to offer in exchange are promised every 
attention. F. A. Malleson. 
The Vicarage, Broughtoji-in- Furness. 
The Kingfisher (p. 49). — Will you allow me to comfort Mr. A. T. Johnson 
over the supposed extinction of the kingfisher? The bird is by no means so rare 
as he seems to fear. They may still be seen frequently on the upper reaches of 
the Thames, and during the two last summers I have seen specimens repeatedly 
between Marlow and Wargrave, especially near Greenlands, and in the bushes 
