NOTES—ORIGINAL AND SELECTED. 55
him ; but if you were to make a mark on his shell with your knife, then, when
you caught him again, you would see how much he had grown in the time,
which we want to know.' Whereupon an old salt looked up at the learned
official and remarked, 'Don't yer know, measter, as they shoots their shells
every year?' An awkward interrogation for Her Majesty's Inspector."
BOTANY.
"The Existing Trees and Shrubs of Epping Forest" (See Essex
Naturalist, vol. x., pp. 377-3S7).—Ligustrum vulgare, L. To the one bush
mentioned in my list, I can now add some more Privet higher up the Ching
Valley, in a thicket near the north end of the red path.
Taxus baccata, L. I regret to say that the specimen mentioned as growing
near the great oak was, during the latter part of the winter, uprooted and
removed by some rascally thief. So far as I know we are now without any
yew tree not artificially planted. — F. W. Elliott, Buckhurst Hill,
April, 1899.
Fasciation in the Holly in Epping Forest.—"Fasciation" is the
technical term for the abnormal arrangement of the shoots of plants in
"fasces" or bundles. This occurs occasionally, but not so far as I know,
very generally. I have examples in the Daisy, also in a Buttercup in which
many stalks have been joined together, in some cases to the width of an inch.
It appears from my observations in Epping Forest that this habit obtains
somewhat frequently in the Holly, and I have specimens in which the shoots,
as many as 50 or 60 in number, are joined together. When this is the case,
the stem instead of being round, is quite flat, and I have noticed that nearly
each stem has a separate leaflet. The enlargement begins sometimes at the
middle part of the stem, and then all the subsidiary branches are fasciated to
the top.—S. Arthur Sewell, Buckhurst Hill. [Mr. Sewell has kindly pre-
sented a specimen to our Herbarium ]
Mistletoe on Hornbeam in Epping Forest.—Being known as a
naturalist I often have my attention drawn by keepers and others to various
matters connected with natural history. To this I must attribute the fact
that I was taken into the Forest to see a small shoot of the Mistletoe growing
on a Hornbeam. Certainly it was there, but there was not enough, even if I
had been inclined to do so, to take a specimen.—S. Arthur Sewell, "Maple-
stead," Buckhurst Hill. [The occurrence of the Mistletoe on the Hornbeam
must be rare, as we cannot find an instance recorded in any "Flora" to which
we have access. In Essex it is generally found on Apple and sometimes (as
in Hatfield Forest) on Hawthorn.—Ed.]
GEOLOGY.
Chalky Boulder Clay in Epping Forest.—Walking down the road from
Abridge to Theydon Bois station in the beginning of November last, I found
that the right hand side of the road at Parsonage Farm, about a quarter of a
mile from the station, had just been dug up and filled in with gravel for several
yards past the farm, and that a quantity of Chalky Boulder Clay had been dug
out and was lying in heaps at the side of the road. I was told that this was
found under the gravel in the trench, but as this was filled in I could not get
a section. In the Geological Survey Map the Boulder Clay is shown up to