Field Notes. 
129 
was heard about her for a week, when two men with some- 
thing in a sack called at my house on Sunday morning to 
ask if I had lost a Badger, as they had caught one which 
had destroyed seventeen prize chickens. Under the circum- 
stances I thought it inadvisable to claim proprietorship, and 
upon the animal being turned out of the bag I could only 
say it was very like one I had, but I could not swear to it. 
However, it seemed the captors were only anxious to have 
possession of it themselves, and needless to say, I was glad 
they should, I thus escaping any possible demand for the 
value of the chickens. 
Another amusing experience with a big boar Badger 
once befel me. I kept him a short time for the purpose of 
photographing him. One Sunday afternoon I released him 
in an enclosed green, carefully barricading the exits about 
five feet high. After a time he suddenly made up his mind 
that he had had enough of me and my camera, and set off 
with a speedy unweildy gallop down the path, clearing the 
obstacle like a hunter, and then into the open street. He 
ran along at a rattling pace, with myself, hatless, in pursuit. 
Eventually he went to ground in the window-area of a house 
belonging to some maiden ladies, who were terrified at the 
appearance of such a ferocious (!) animal. I got a sack which I 
placed over him, and thus ignominiously carted him home. He 
was, however, set at liberty a day or two after. — R. Fortune. 
— : o : — 
FUNGI. 
Polyporus giganteus as a timber = destroying Fungus. — 
About mid-day on Sunday last, 15th February, during a violent 
south-westerly gale a large Beech tree in Miss Arkwright’s 
garden at the Gate House, Wirksworth, was uprooted and fell 
with a tremendous crash. I had noticed last summer a 
profuse growth of the many-lobed pilei of Polyporus giganteus 
round the roots of the tree, and then expressed the opinion 
that its ultimate fate was sealed. In a gale some four or 
five years ago a Beech tree elsewhere in the town was blown 
down, and this too was badly attacked by the same fungus. 
In both cases the roots of the tree were badly decayed by the 
action of the fungus and the trees were completely undermined. 
IMassee, in his ‘ Text Book of Plant Diseases ’ (1st edition, p. 
198) says of Polyporus giganteus that it ‘ Often springs in dense 
masses from the roots of living trees and is probably parasitic.’ 
—Thomas Gibbs, Wirksworth. 
— : o :- — 
MOSSES. 
Hookeria Isete=vireus Hook, and Tayl. in West Lan = 
cashire. — I have just been looking over my collection of 
1914 April 1. 
