36 
NATURE NOTES 
number, no less than six times) of the name and address of a contributor. Surely 
once is sufficient ; I speak for myself. 
13, Tufnell Park Road, London, N. Fred Enock. 
[Whilst it is undoubtedly important that many observations should be per- 
sonally vouched for and localised, the blame for the too frequent repetition of one 
name and address rests with the Editor. — Ed. N. N.~\. 
I trust Mr. Daubeny will permit a slight correction to his note on earwigs 
in your issue of December. He twice writes of these insects as beetles. They 
belong to the Dermaptera, an order of insects separated from the Orthoptera by 
Latreille, and restricted to the earwigs by Kirby. It contains three genera, which 
have the elytra entirely coraceous and the tail armed with a forceps. The neura- 
tion of the elytra is allied to that of the Orthoptera, among which these insects 
were formerly included. 
41, Holland Park, IV. Ernest A. Elliott. 
December 26, 1902. 
The Holly (p. 16). — In reply to “ M. J. T.’s” request, I believe your 
correspondent is quite right in supposing that the holly tree that I wrote about 
near Christchurch grows on the Bagshot sand formation ; anyhow the nature of 
the soil seems to me to be the same as exists in and about Sandhurst an I 
Aldershot. I cannot give so full a reply as I could wish because, having let my 
house at Montreux fur the winter months, I have only a few books of reference 
with me, and of these, three on forestry are on loan to friends. At least one holly 
of considerable stature grew under an old river bank, where some of its roots must 
always be in the water, and when the river Stour is in flood the water, I expect, 
would reach the trunk. The result then of my observations is that the holly likes 
a shady situation with at least moist if not W'et sandy soil, but not stagnant wet ; 
few trees can stand that. When next at Christchurch I will go fully into this 
matter, and if the above needs correction or amplification I will write further. I 
have more to say now arising out of this, but it must stand over for the present. 
Hotel Belmont, Montreux. Giles A. Daubeny. 
January 13, 1903. 
Meteoric Stones. — May I be permitted to offer a few remarks on Mr. 
Hastie’s communicaiion in the January issue — not in a spirit of controversy, but 
because I think the question it raises is an extremely interesting one for students 
of nature. It is nothing less than this : is our cognisance of the existence of a 
world exterior to our own dependent on sight only, with all its liability to illusion, 
or are we occasionally favoured with a message from the wot Id beyond the skies 
in a tangible lorm, something that we can handle and submit to the most reliable 
and convincing of our senses — touch. 
On approactiing the subject from the scientific standpoint we are confronted 
at the outset with a formidable difficulty, one almost unique in the range of 
nature-study. No element of periodicity has as yet been observed in the visits of 
the particular class of meteors we are now discussing. They arrive when no one 
is on the look-out fur them, in a few seconds they have disappeared, either in the 
air or in the ground. If a competent observer should chance to be a spectator he 
has no time to bring his instruments into use, and generally the only information 
obtainable as to what actually occurred during those few seconds is that derived 
from the compared accounts of witnesses who, taken aback by the strangeness of 
the event, are often not in a condition to give a very clear account of what they 
saw. The mat er becomes therefore one of credibility, which will present itself 
in different degrees to different minds, and each individual will of course be 
allowed to form bis own judgment. 
Many a popular belief has succumbed under the searching examination of 
modern science, but it is remarkable that in this particular branch of enquiry the 
process has been exactly reversed. As Mr. Fletcher reminded the Selbornians 
who recently vi-ited his department at the Natural History Museum, the scientific 
world, up to quite a modern period, treated the popular stories on this subject 
with contempt ; then they condescended to examine them, and now the fall of 
solid meteors is generally accepted as a scientific fact. Mr. Fletcher (if I did not 
