154
NOTES—ORIGINAL AND SELECTED.
" The fallen part of the trunk has been replaced in its original position by
Mr. Theobald's instructions, the better to protect and preserve the remaining
portion, and to restore the trunk to it? original appearance, with the rustic seat
around it." We shall be glad of any further information about this oak, which is
evidently very ancient, although the age assigned to it in Mr. Bruton's note will
be received with considerable hesitation by botanists.—Ed.
Spring Foliage on the Oaks at Midsummer.—In some of the woods in
this district, the oak trees have been nearly as bare of leaves as at Christmas, the
result partly of frost, but more especially of caterpillars, which were in great
numbers, and cleared off every bit of green. I noticed this particularly in a wood
in Stanway, near Kingsford Bridge ; but lately the oaks there have quite recovered,
and instead of seeing the bright green of the midsummer shoot, with a backing cf
darker foliage, the trees are now in the spring coating of light green leaves, just
as one sees them when they first put out their full foliage in early spring. I never
remember seeing such a mass of light green at this time of the year as is now
shown in Kingsford Grove. It may be that I never saw such destruction by cater-
pillars as has been apparent this year, and it would be of interest if observers in
other parts of the county would state whether they have noticed a similar condition
of the foliage of the oaks in their districts, the results of similar causes.—Henry
LAVER, F.L.S. Colchester, July "th, 1894. [Several times in my recollection the
oaks in certain parts of Epping Forest have suffered severely from the depredations
of caterpillars (chiefly Cheimatobia brumata, and Hybernia defoliaria, and
aurantiaria) in the way described by Dr. Laver, and have afterwards put on fresh
leaves in the summer, a renewed spring. This phenomenon occurred last year, and
in a less degree during the spring and summer of the present year. Such second
foliation has a very marked effect on the appearance of the midsummer woods,
and also diminishes the number of leaf-galls and other insects, whose eggs may
be laid on the buds or young leaves of the oaks in the spring.—WILLIAM COLE.]
Algae and Folklore.—In 1890 I sent to The Essex Naturalist (vol. iv.,
p. 142) a note with regard to Euglena on a pond surface at East Donyland, which
at certain times of the day changed from green to red, to the alarm of the supersti-
tious who looked upon the phenomenon as an omen of blood. The appearance
was again to be seen in 1891. I notice in "The Antiquary" for July an account
of the Holy Wells of Scotland, from which it appears that St. Tredwell's Loch in
the Orkneys was anciently believed to appear like blood before any disaster befell
the royal family, a tradition which may not improbably have been due to a similar
cause. On July 2nd I visited the Donyland ponds again, and found the one
which was covered with Euglena in 1890 and 1891, is this year full of green
patches, which turn out to be an alga consisting of loose spirals; or coils, appar-
ently Anabaena, or one of the Nostoceae. If some member of the Club with leisure
would investigate by actual cultivation, the life-history of some of these forms
which come and go with mysterious periodicity, a great deal that is at present
altogether unknown might be discovered; and possibly it would be found that
species differing even as widely as these that are named above have a closer
relationship than is at present suspected. Your readers may be also interested to
know that in the same pond are now to be found numbers of balloon-shaped lumps
of jelly, three to four inches in length. They appear to be void of organisation,
and may be only the remains of some kind of spawn, but in the plasm are vast
numbers of the beautiful Pediastrum.—CHARLES E, BENHAM, Colchester, July,
1894.