120 
NATURE NOTES 
After tea a visit was paid to the convent garden and nuns’ walk. The only 
flowers to be had were the wall pennywort, and a quantity of blue and white 
violets. 
Saturday, May 6. — The weather was perfect for the second ramble of this 
Hranch. The excursion was taken to Tiverton Wood by kind permission of Mr. 
Carr, under the direction of the Rev. Stokes Shaw. Some pretty peeps of the 
Avon were shown en route, and a delightful ramble taken through the wood. 
Bluebells were plentiful, but no rare plants. One curious thing was noticed — 
the branch of a tree had grown out of one part and in at another, forming quite 
a handle, like the handle of a jug. Tea was taken in the pretty vicarage garden 
by the kind invitation of the vicar, and after seeing the fine old church with a 
perfect Norman arch, and other antiquities, the party wended its way home- 
wards. 
Croydon and Norwood. — A special committee of the Society has been 
formed to watch buildings and other objects of antiquarian interest in Croydon, 
with a view to their preservation. At present the attention of the committee is 
being devoted to the Whitgift Foundation Hospital, which, with the ancient 
Archbishop’s Palace, claim most of the attention of local antiquarians. The 
committee met on May 8 for the first time, Mr. W. Whitaker, I*'. R.S., President 
of the Geological Society, in the chair. Ur. Hobson, County Councillor, is Hon. 
Sec. p 7 -o. tern., and among those present were Mrs. E. Phillips, Miss Mosse- 
white, Messrs. Watson Slack, Councillor Pivan Carpenter, E. A. Martin, P'.G.S., 
I. C. Peters, and Alfred Jones, Warden of the Hospital. Owing to the congestion 
of the traffic at North End it is considered that the Hospital, which is of 
Elizabethan age, may be threatened with demolition, and the efforts of the Com- 
mittee are being directed to the necessity of providing alternative routes of 
traffic. 
ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS. 
Mrs. Needham. — The shrub is Forsythia viridissima, a member of the 
Order Oleacea, and a native of North China and Japan. 
Miss Prentice. — Helix aspersa, which is the commonest large garden 
snail, lays globular eggs about 4 to 4'5 mm. in diameter. They have a shiny, 
elastic envelope, without any lime in it, white or slightly yellowish in colour. 
They are deposited in clusters of fifty to eighty, and, according to some authori- 
ties, even more. They dry and shrink on exposure to the air. Hatch in fifteen 
to thirty days. Helix tiemoralis and korteusis, the yellow-banded snails, have 
small eggs about 2 or 2.5 mm. in diameter, and covered with a distinct calcareous 
shell. These are deposited to the number of forty to eighty. Hatch in fifteen to 
twenty days. The Roman snail {Helix pomatia) also lays eggs with a regular 
shell, about 6 mm. in diameter, and in clusters of sixty to ninety. Hatch in twenty 
to thirty days. 
B. B. Woodward. 
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