BOTANICAL NOTES FROM SOUTH BEDS. 
187 
Burgli ; also, a small flock on the Denes at Yarmouth. On 
the 5th, a female was shot in Shropshire. On the 7th, a 
female shot near Flamborougli, and a male the following day 
at same place. I also have had word sent me that a nest 
containing three eggs has been taken in Norfolk, showing 
that if protection were afforded them the Sand Grouse would 
breed here; and if it should be possible to acclimatise them 
they would be a valuable addition to our avifauna, feeding 
as they do upon small seeds and grasses—not grain, at least 
I have found none in those crops I have examined,—and 
would probably assist in destroying noxious weeds. 
BOTANICAL NOTES FROM SOUTH BEDS. 
Amongst the self-imposed duties of an observer of nature are 
included careful records of the appearance of alien and the extinction 
of native plants. The latter, to put it mildly, is a less agreeable task 
than the former, and it is to record an instance of this kind that these 
notes are made. During the last few vears rumours have been rife 
that it was intended to enclose much of Totternhoe Common land, and 
a visit during the present month of May, 1888, has revealed changes 
that, although they might appeal sympathetically to the utilitarian 
spirit of the age, yet evoke feelings of keen regret from the lovers of 
nature’s quiet haunts. One could forgive the diversion of tortuous 
roads, the stoppage of little-used paths, but the conversion of a 
favourite haunt of some of our rarest native plants into an arable 
field, implies an irreparable loss from a naturalist’s point of view. 
Lying between Totternhoe and Eaton Bray, there has existed a low, 
boggy meadow, which is now in the course of being turned into arable 
land. An enumeration of some of its more striking plants will give 
some idea of the richness of its organic contents. Such are Anagallis 
tenella, Parnassia palustris , Pinguicula vulgaris, Menyanthes trifoliata, 
Orchis latifolia , Care.v panicea, C. binervis, and last, which is the most 
noteworthy, Hypnum Sendtneri, for it is to be feared that this rare 
moss must now be regarded as extinct in the county of Beds. Of the 
other plants, the Bog Pimpernel and the Butterwort, there are in 
this county at least one other station for each, viz., Heath and Reach 
for the former, and Markham Hills for the latter. On carefully 
examining the upturned sods of the Totternhoe mead, one detected at 
the visit in question some half dozen plants of the Pinguicula, which 
were carefully removed to an adjoining meadow, which is enclosed as 
a pasture, where it is hoped they will continue to exist. But of 
Ilypnum Sendtneri not a trace could be found, as the ditch in which it 
grew was filled with soil. As a further illustration of the varied forms 
of life of this field, it may be mentioned that the surface of the 
prepared soil was literally strewn with the blanched shells of molluscs, 
chiefly consisting of Succinea elegans, Carychium minimum, Helix 
hispida, H. sericea, H. pulchella, and Cochlicopa lubrica. There was a 
small compensating record made on the same occasion that somewhat 
diminished one’s regret, viz., the occurrence, in an adjoining meadow, 
of Polygonum bistorta, which was known only to grow near Luton in 
S. Beds, in a field that will probably soon be built upon. 
Jas. Saundeks, Luton. 
