NOTES—ORIGINAL AND SELECTED. 301
fed up very rapidly, and has now formed a slight cocoon in the
earth, but Mr. Hope fears that it has been "stung" by ichneu-
mons. In all probability we shall hear of more captures of this
rare sphinx this summer.—Ed.
ECHINODERMATA.
Henricia sanguinolenta in the Colne River.—On
May 29th, Dr. Henry Laver wrote :—"On Thursday, the 26th,
our Fishery Board inspected the Colne, dredging in various parts
of the river. Towards the mouth of the river the star-fish I
send came up in a dredge, and I saved it for you, as it was some-
thing fresh to me, and neither of the dredgermen on board
recognised it. . . . . Fortunately for our Fishery there are
very few star-fishes in the Colne, and in all we did not draw up
more than five or six during the day. There was one having a
small oyster in his embrace ; I don't think he had killed it,.
but it would have been only a question of a little time.
The star-fish sent by Dr. Laver was Henricia sanguinolenta
O. F. Mull=Cribella oculata Forbes. As far as I know, this
is an addition to our, at present, slender list of Essex
Echinoderms. It is very different in appearance from the
common star-fish (Asterias rubens); when taken from the water it is
stiff, and does not drop flaccidly when lifted up as the Asterias
does. In Mr. F. Jeffrey Bell's Catalogue of British Echinoderms, it
is given a very wide area, horizontally and vertically, both
sides of N. Atlantic, Arctic Ocean, and North Sea littoral to
1,350 fathoms. Bell records many Scottish localities and says
that the species occurs at Plymouth, Weymouth, and Worthing,
but gives no intermediate eastern localities. Dr. Laver has
kindly presented the specimen to our Museum.—W. Cole,
Buckhurst Hill.
BOTANY.
Lathraea squarmaria, L. in Essex.—I had a piece of this
interesting parasitic plant, the "Toothwort," sent me to-day
from what appears to be the locality indicated in Gibson's Flora
of Essex—"in a meadow near Halstead, but very rare," where it
was recorded by Mr. Thomas Bentall (date ?). It is interesting
to know that this plant, so rare in Essex—I know of only one
other locality for it in the county, a locality kindly pointed out to
me by Mr. E. E. Turner, of Coggeshall, in the same district—