WAYSIDE NOTES 
265 
add to it the probability that there would be no lack of water 
during the summer, the case for extensive drainage seems 
very strong. 
The average good from land drainage is vastly in excess 
of the evil, no doubt; but I cannot help sharing the belief 
that the scarcity of water in some water-bearing beds, and the 
calls for rain from farmers themselves, after an interval of 
dry weather, are partly due to extensive agricultural drainage, 
for whatever arrests percolating water reduces the springs 
from underlying porous beds, and whatever dries the soil 
reduces the interval between a shower and the time when 
another is required. I have several times traced drains in 
grass fields by the dry and withered condition of the herbage. 
I cannot think I should be far wrong in describing the drain¬ 
age there as either indiscriminate, or excessive for that season, 
though perhaps only sufficient for others. 
Taking Northamptonshire as a whole, I unreservedly 
accept the assurances of numerous farmers, several of them 
my personal friends, and all of them speaking with the 
authority of experience, that there is very little land over¬ 
drained in this county, but very much that requires draining. 
(To be continued, j 
In the last number of the “Midland Naturalist” (p. 238), a 
specimen of Cotula coronopi folia was exhibited from Norway. It was 
then stated that it came from its only locality in Europe. This must 
be incorrect, since Nyman, in his Conspectus, gives it as occurring in 
Denmark, Germany, Holland, North Spain, and Portugal. Mr. C. 
Bailey has collected it in Cheshire, to which county (as probably to 
its European localities) it has been introduced. I saw it growing 
plentifully, and apparently native, in marshy ground between Cadiz 
and Algeciras, in 1887. G. C. Druce. 
Kussula claroflava sp. nov. —This species resembles Russula ochro- 
leuca, and might by some be considered only a strongly-marked variety 
of that, but it differs in other points than colour so remarkably that 
it is, in my opinion, fairly entitled to be considered distinct. It has 
occurred for many years successively at Wyndlev Pool, Sutton, and 
always presents the same appearance. In stature it approaches R. 
citrina, but resembles R. ochroleuca in the ultimately rugose and 
cinereous stem, which is at first white and smooth, but ultimately 
becomes even more darkly cinereous than in that species. The colour 
of the pileus is a pure rich chrome-yellow, even approaching the paler 
shades of egg-yellow, and the same tint is found occasionally on the 
base of the stem. The gills differ from both the species mentioned in 
becoming a pale lemon-yellow. The flesh, wherever wounded, becomes 
somewhat rufous. R. claroflava : pileus, 2-3 inch, convex, at first 
