COBRESPONDENCE. 
9B 
Breedon and Cloud Hill Lime.— Will one of your correspondents 
inform me what are the constituents of Breedon and Cloud Hill 
lime ? Also what in particular renders them unfit for agricultural 
purposes?—E. A. Green. 
Early Spring Flowers. —January 29th— PrimuJa vulgaris. Primrose. 
February 9th— Poteiitilla Vragariastrum, barren Strawberry; 14th— 
Viola odorata alba, White Violet; Mercurialis perennis, Dog’s Mercury ; 
15th— Ranunculus Ficaria, Lesser Celandine ; 18th— Taraxacum officinale, 
Dandelion ; 25th— Tussilago Farfara, Coltsfoot.—0. M. F., Frankton 
Bectory, Oswestry, Salop. 
Heralds of Spring. —February 18th—A gloriously warm, sunny 
day, briuging out the Honey Bees in plenty. 23rd—The Mason Bee 
(Anthophora retusa), with its musical pipe and lightning-like flight, 
only resting a moment, ]3oising over some open flower to sip the first 
nectar of spring, and then on again in its rapid flight. This bee makes 
its burrows in sandbanks exposed to the south, also in the mortar of 
old walls, and where it is plentiful I would advise entomologists to search 
its nest for the rare Parasitic Beetle (Sitaris liumeralis), and in a short 
time the beautiful silver-striped Parasitic Bee (Melecta argentata) will 
make its appearance I have taken both of these parasitic insects in 
localities where Anthophora occurred. Another insect that always ap¬ 
pears with the first hot weather is the Biting Sand-fly (Simuliurn reptans). 
It is a most persevering blood-sucker. The organs of the mouth will well 
repay careful study, as also will those of its larv£B, which I have just 
seen for the first time. February 28th.—I observed, besides these two 
insects, Bombus terrestris; and on March 5th, the first Tortoiseshell Butter¬ 
fly (Vanessa urticce) and the Wild Bee (Andrena albicans). In a wood near 
Woking, of about ten acres extent, the ground is literally carpeted with 
the Wild Daffodil (Narcissus pseudo-narcissus), which, seen for the first 
time, will never be forgotten. March 6th.—The weather changed 
suddenly, commencing with 6° of frost, increasing to 14° last Saturday 
night. —Fred. Enoch, Ferndale, Woking Station, March 16th, 1883. 
Anomalies of the Season During March, 1883.—Throughout the 
Winter, since the middle of December last, the weather has been 
extremely mild up to the beginning of March, primroses here (where 
we are rather bleak) remaining in flower most of the time. On 
Sunday, the 4th (a beautiful day), I saw a Rhododendron in a neigh¬ 
bour’s garden with two very fine flowers quite open; and a week 
previously we pulled Rhubarb from our garden which had not been 
covered up at all during the winter. After the almost Arctic weather 
that has prevailed since the 6th, a very different sight presented itself 
at the back of the Town Hall, Birmingham, yesterday, the 22nd, in 
the middle of the day. Near the fountain of the Chamberlain 
Memorial are a few evergreens. One of these, two or three feet high, 
standing in a tub—an Aucuba or allied plant, for it was difficult to 
make out its species as the leaves were blown off—was in a position 
that enabled it to receive the fine spray driven from the fountain by 
the bitter east wind. It was, by the sharp frost prevailing, conse¬ 
quently encrusted with ice all over the stems, from which here and 
there an icicle of several inches in length depended. The cylindrical 
ice was in many parts more than an inch in thickness and the plant 
presented a singular appearance, very like a beautiful stalactite. 
Several other plants near it were also encrusted with ice, reminding 
one of the photographs of Niagara during the winter months.—W. R, 
Hughes, Haiidsworth Wood, Good Friday, 1883. 
