i;8 
NATURE NOTES 
assiduously looked after by him on whom the sorrows of bereavement had sat so 
lightly ! Surely this is most unusual, and, I trust, confined to domesticated 
birds ! This circumstance leads one to suspect that morality in pigeons of the 
present day leaves much to be desired. 
Fylton Rectory, Bristol. A. C. Mackie. 
The Toad. — On July 20, while some repairs were being carried on in our 
church, a skeleton was discovered at about the depth of six feet under the 
pavement, and in the skull a large yellow toad. The theory of the man who 
found it is, that the creature was there in the man’s lifetime and grew after his 
death ! Even supposing that it found its way there about thirty years ago when 
the church was restored, how did it subsist at that depth from the surface without 
air or food ? Can anyone explain it ? 
North Moreton Vicarage, M. S. N. 
IVallingford. 
Leaf-Cutting' Bees. — One of these bees has taken up her quarters in the 
woodwork of my porch. Underneath the entrance to the nest are scattered 
seventy or eighty pieces of leaf which the bee has dropped in her efforts to drag 
them through the hole, a loss of time and labour which reminds one of the 
collection of sticks underneath a jackdaw’s nest in the tower of a church. These 
pieces, which are from a Judas tree close by, are as large as an oblong sixpence, 
and are cut from the edge of the leaf with great rapidity. The process of cutting 
and carrying away takes five or six seconds. 
Market Weston, Thetford, Edmund Thomas Daubeny. 
July, 1900. 
Bumble Bees. — In what part of the body of insects some of their senses 
reside is not yet known. How a fly hears or smells is one of the unsolved 
problems in its history. A bumble bee that has made her nest underneath the 
floor in one of my outhouses has called my attention to these matters. The out- 
house has a door, but no window. When leaving the nest the bees run straight 
along the floor to the door, about eight feet, in the ordinary way, evidently 
guided by sight alone. On their return, however, and when travelling away 
from the light, their attitude and tactics change. The eyes seem no longer to 
be used, the hinder part of the body is raised, while the head is held close to the 
ground, as if they smelled their way, quartering the floor in this and that direction 
like a terrier on the scent of a rabbit. From this one would suppose that the 
organs of smell were placed in the bumble bee’s head. 
Market Weston, Thetford, Edmund Thos. Daubeny. 
July, 1900. 
An Abnormal Foxglove. — Abnormal growths of the foxglove are not 
altogether uncommon, but one that I have seen this year seems rather extra- 
oidinary. It was found by Mr. M. Davis, one of our Croydon members, in his 
garden. One of the flowers near the head of the stem had opened out almost 
exactly like a hollyhock, the inside of the corolla being ornamented with the 
usual dots of the purple foxglove. Stranger still, there were no less than 
thirteen stamens. After this flower had blossomed and fallen, two others opened 
out, and resembled very closely in shape and size the common Canterbury Bell. 
The phenomenon seems to suggest crossing, but the foxglove and the hollyhock 
scarcely flower at the same time, unless the topmost flowers of the former are 
sometimes delayed until the earlier flowers of the latter make their appearance. 
Edward A. Martin. 
[Such fasciated terminal blossoms are not uncommon. We have a photograph 
of one recently received from a correspondent with a similar suggestion of 
crossing, which is, however, quite impossible. — Ed. N.N.~\ 
