NATURAL HISTORY NOTES 
231 
I was much interested in Dr. Snow’s note re “ Butterflies and Sap ” in the 
November number of Nature Notes. I have noticed this summer that a plum 
tree in my garden has exuded a considerable quantity of sap, which probably 
accounts for the fairly large number of red admirals and peacocks which I have 
seen on and about the stem of the tree. I wondered many times what could be the 
attraction. 
Swytnbj'id^e, North Devon., W. Shelley. 
November 14, igoo. 
[Is it not gum rather than sap which exudes from your plum-tree ? A main 
point in Dr. Snow’s note was the fermented condition of the birch sap. — 
Ed. N.N.^ 
Earwigs. — The poor despised earwig, for which hardly anyone has a good 
word, is not the unmitigated nuisance it is generally supposed to be. Earwigs are 
great enemies of the scale insect, one of the most difficult pests to combat in a 
green-house. Some plants infested by scale can be washed or scrubbed, while 
others are too delicate to be treated thus. Maiden-hair ferns are very liable to 
their attacks, and the usual remedy is to cut the plants down and let them grow 
again. One of my maiden-hair ferns that was covered with scale I put under a 
bell glass and placed two or three earwigs on it. They at once set to work in 
broad daylight, though usually nocturnal in their habits, and in a short time the 
scale had disappeared. Edmund Thos. Daubeny. 
A/arhet Weston Rectory, Thetfoi'd, Norfolk, 
November, 1900. 
Oleander Hawk-moth {Metopsilus nerii). — The readers of Nature 
Notes will doubtless be interested to know that a fine specimen of this 
beautilul and rare moth has been captured quite recently at Teignmouth. It 
was not alive when I saw it, but I was much struck with its exquisite beauty 
and great size. The last seen here was in 1832, and is mentioned in Jardine’s 
Naturalists’ Library. It is, I believe, seldom seen in England. About the 
same time a fine death’s-head hawk moth (Acherontia atropos) was also captured ; 
but this is not so rare as the Oleander. Both are in the possession of Mr. J. J. 
A. Evans, of this town. 
7 eignmOHth. CAROLINE E. FaRLEY. 
Ivy. — I arn much pleased to find that you endorse my views of this lovely 
creeper. As I said, I would beg that any of your readers who may have formed, 
from tradition and hearsay, the conviction that it is injurious to the trees that 
support it, will examine a dozen or a hundred trees with, or the same number 
without, ivy on them, and state the result. I may arid that besides its beauty, the 
ivy is of the greatest benefit to the game-preserver, furnishing, as it does, conceal- 
ment, food, and shelter to the pheasants. 
Nascolt House, Watford. George Roofer. 
If this question is not finally closed I should like to say a word or two on the 
side of the prosecution. I have in my garden and meadow some rather fine old 
oaks, three (or possibly four) of which seem to me to be of the same age. All 
but one have good “heads” and fine spreading boughs. I believe I can certify 
that one bough is, by measurement, eighty feet long. But one has a poor stunted 
top ; and, in Kentish phrase, is “going home” faster than any of the others. It 
may, of course, be a mere coincidence, that when I came here at the end of 1869, 
I found this tree matted round thickly with ivy. I cut this away, but it was too 
late to renew its youth. One swallow does not make a summer ; but if I may 
venture to say so, we want an accumulation of cases like this, of trees w'ith ivy 
and without ivy, but otherwise similarly circumstanced. 
Can any correspondent mention trees that have grown to a great age, pre- 
serving their health and vigour as well with ivy as others have done without it ? 
I d ) not think I can remember such ; I think the finest old trees that I have 
seen have been free from ivy, or nearly so. 
Oiham Parsonage, Maidstone. F. M. Millard. 
Late Flowers. — Last Sunday (November ii) I observed in blossom, 
Slachys Be/onica, Solidago Virgawera, Hieraciiun boreale, Achillea Millefolium, 
Scabiosa succisa, no doubt owing to mildness of the season. 
Ctatibrook. A. W. Hudson. 
