PRINCIPALLY IN THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF FELSTEAD. 191
sufficient proof of the paucity of individuals in that colony. I feel
also confident in speaking of the effects in a much wider field (say
Essex generally) of the drought on the above-named species of
L. palustris. This mollusc is a lover of very shallow water, and is
now getting very restricted and rare in many places. The con-
ditions for keeping areas of bog and marsh in Essex are becoming
yearly more difficult. Starting early in March with a limited area of
this kind, that area had shrunk materially by the time September
was reached, and it is very problematical whether any species that
might have inhabited that margin of shrinkage escaped. In ordinary
years, or even in moderate droughts, the mud remains moist and
protects the organisms, but this resort here failed. A land species
in my neighbourhood, Helix arbustorum, requires very much the
same kind of habitat, and is in a similar condition. Of three small
colonies observed, one has totally failed, and a second thought to
have failed in consequence of the drought. The other, though
small, has resources which were denied to the others, and will
probably live on.
We will now turn to plant organisms, or rather to flowering
plants in particular, dividing even these for the purposes of our
notes into trees and herbs.
In treating of both we may remark that they furnish a kind of
index as to the state of the underground circulation of water and
to the depth to which the drought extended. Thus, so far as trees
go, there is reason to believe that they knew nothing of the lack of
water at the roots, and were probably benefited by a dry atmosphere.
In some meadows a very curious effect was observable. Where the
land was undrained and moist the grass kept green, and contrasted
strangely with the drier parts of the meadow. In one meadow at
Leighs Priory so much of the grass died as to reveal the contour of
some old foundations on which the original Priory was built. This
I think proves that all the moisture obtained by grass and the
smaller vegetation in general was obtained by an upward circulation
of water acting perhaps by capillary attraction. Where there was a
possibility of cutting off this upward circulation, as in the case of the
buried foundations, the plants died.
The cereal crops in those districts in which the drought was
greatest have signally failed. This failure is not so well understood
in the case of wheat, as it is proverbial that dry weather suits that
crop, and moreover it is known that wheat strikes some of its roots