88
NOTES—ORIGINAL AND SELECTED.
of May. [Two swarms came forth from the straw skeps in our garden at East
Mersea on May 15th, which we considered remarkably early.—W. COLE.]
Vanessa Antiopa in Epping Forest.—On Saturday, April 7th, I was
delighted to take a hybernated specimen of the "Camberwell Beauty" butterfly in
Great Monk Wood, Epping Forest.—W. F. WHITTINGHAM, "North View," The
Drive, Walthamstow. April 23rd, 1894.
Inscribed Letters in a Tree Trunk.—In the middle of December last,
during one of the heavy gales that prevailed at that time, a large elm was blown
down by the roadside near Cannock Mill, on the road to Donyland, near Col-
chester. A month or so later portions of the timber were being chopped up for
firewood when a curious discovery came to light. A piece of the trunk split open
under the chopper, and revealed the letters "B. P." boldly inscribed on one sur-
INSCRIBED LETTERS IN AN ELM-TREE.
face and in clear relief on the other. The tree had in former days marked the
parish boundary of St. Botolph's. Bark had been cut away and a plane surface
of wood levelled, on which the letters had been cut. The bark appears to have
crept over and covered up the inscription, and the growing wood fibre of the tree
had buried the letters deeper and deeper into the tree trunk. I have heard of a
story, whether apocryphal or not I cannot tell, about a somewhat similar incident,
though of a more romantic character, the following suggestive lines having been
similarly incised in the heart of a piece of timber :
" Long shall this tree witness bear
We two lovers walked here."
The discovery at Colchester has led me to wonder whether other parish boundary
marks have not been tree-swallowed in the same way. The present instance
shows that such cases could he detected without cutting the tree down, for the
outside scar would never be completely covered up. I am on the look out in this
neighbourhood, and have already found a suspicious-looking tree exactly level
with the modern stone boundary of a Colchester parish ; but unfortunately, the
trunk is so clasped with ivy that its secret, if it has one in its heart, is at present
inscrutable. Members in other parts of the county might hunt for examples, for
it is not unlikely that trees were, in the times of the "simple great ones gone,"
the accustomed landmarks of parochial boundaries.—Charles E. Benham,
Colchester, April, 1894.