276 NOTES ON SOME PLANTS PECULIAR TO ESSEX.
since. It was three or four feet tall, with large serrated leaves, so
white as to be attractive almost in the dark of a late evening in the
autumn. That it had sharp spines my incautious handling of it in
the dark gave me convincing proof.
Hyoscamus niger, L. In the same glade it is sometimes in
tolerable plenty, at other times not to be seen. In 1878 it was
in abundance, in 1879 not a plant could be found ! This inter-
mittence is also observed in the Fox-glove (Digitalis). It was not
seen in the garden here ("The Roos") for ten or more years, but
four or five years ago it came up plentifully.
Ophrys apifera, Huds. (the "Bee-Orchis"). This plant is not
often seen in this part of the parish, but a pasture at the "Roos,"
where the Chalk crops out, which had been fed with sheep for 20
or more years till almost as close as a lawn, was allowed to run to a
crop. Then in the standing grass hundreds of Bee-orchises could
have been gathered. Although diligently searched for, not one has
been seen since. It would appear that the plants had exhausted
themselves by blooming, and the roots had lain in the soil in
abeyance.3 Like things happen in the insect world. In all my
entomological days I only succeeded in securing one specimen of
the Clouded-yellow butterfly (Colias edusa), but a few years ago,
one summer, in walking across the fields, I could have caught
scores; not one has been seen since. The year before last we had
a cuckoo, whose principal food is caterpillars; only five caterpillars
could be found for it during the whole summer. There were plenty
of white butterflies, but I found on examining the cabbages that
their deposited eggs were effete, and there were very few last year.
A moth that some years ago I had taken had deposited a number
of eggs on the sides of the chip box in which it had been confined.
On looking into the box the next spring I was surprised to find some
only of the eggs hatched; curiosity prompted me to keep the box
on, and I found the next year that some more had come to life, and
yet more on the third year, when to my regret the box was lost.
Would not such phenomena as these in some measure account for
the intermittent occurrence of insects, &c. ? And like considerations,
as I hinted above, may in plant life explain the uncertain appear-
ance of the Pasque-flower on the slopes of the Bartlow Hills.
[Mr. Clarke's list included a large number of plants more or less rare in Essex,
but as the stations he gave are all in Gibson's "Flora," it is unnecessary to repeat
them here. —Ed.]
3 For some notes on the Bee-Orchis in Essex, see E. N. vol. ii, p. 112.—Ed.