NOTES—ORIGINAL AND SELECTED.
43
my house at Buckhurst Hill. The wings were found in the early
morning scattered over the floor. Bats are very numerous in the
garden, and have been seen "hawking" in and out of the
verandah, and I feel tolerably certain that they were the culprits.
The moths determined belonged to 16 species, viz.:—
Smerinthus populi. N. xanthographa.
Pygaera bucephala. Plusia gamma.
Notodonta camelina. Mania typica.
Xylophasia polyodon. M. maura.
Luperina testacea. Amphipyra pyramidea.
Triphaena pronuba. Selenia lunaria.
T. orbona. Geometra papilionaria.
Noctua augur, Botys verticalis.
The exhibit was intended to show the constant and keen
warfare carried on against moths by those animals preying upon
them. My brother found wings of Geometra papilionaria in Birch
Wood, Kent, in July, 1867. On June 30th, 1889, in company
with Prof. Meldola, in the Epping Forest district, we picked up
the wings of Smerinthus filia, Stilpnotia salicis, and Halias quercana,
which had evidently fallen victims to bats or insectivorous birds.
B. G. Cole on two occasions actually saw birds snap the wings
off moths—one a Pepper Moth (Amphidasis betularia) in New
Forest (July, 1874), and the other a Leopard Moth (Zeuzera
aesculi), at Buckhurst Hill. In the evening, in both cases; the
birds were not identified.—W. Cole, Buckhurst Hill, November,
1902.
BOTANY.
"The Existing Trees and Shrubs of Epping Forest."
—Ribes grossularia, L. There is a small plant of this species in
a thicket near the Fairmead Road. It is too young for the
variety to be determined.—F. W. Elliott, April 7th, 1903.
Early Flowering of the Hawthorn.—Flowers are fully
open on a hawthorn in Buckhurst Hill to-day. April 7th. The
particular bush is an early blossoming one every year, but this
is easily a record, in my experience.—F. W. Elliott.
Mr. C. B. Sworder, of Epping, writes to the Standard under
date April 10th. "Some May in bloom was picked today near
here, my earliest record being May 17th, 1898, but I find
February 16th, 1834, quoted in the Penny Magazine."
Lathyrus Aphaca. This plant was found on a bank by
the side of a field near the Gatehouse Farm, Coggeshall. The