278 NOTES.—ORIGINAL AND SELECTED,
carried by insects and birds, finally alighting on other beech
trees, where they re-commence their work of destruction.
These insects do much damage in some districts. Some of
the beech trees on Wimbledon Common had their stems thickly
covered with the secretion last autumn. It is probable that the
wounds made in the bark enable the spores of fungi and bacteria
to enter the delicate tissues of the plant.
A good account of the life-history of this insect is given
in leaflet 140 of the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries.—Henry
Whitehead, The Essex Museum of Natural History.
MISCELLANEA.
Pottery Mounds in India.—Having lately read Mr. W.
Cole's interesting article in the Essex Naturalist on the
"Exploration of some Red-Hills in Essex" (ante pp. 170-183),
and having also visited some of them situated near Salcot, the
following remarks as regards somewhat similar mounds which I
have seen in India may be of interest, and perhaps tend to
elucidate their origin.
Readers are doubtless aware that in the plains and villages
of India, where all the water required for domestic use has often
to be carried for considerable distances from the wells, a large
number of earthen pots or "gurraks" are always required, so
that the village potters are most important members of the
community, and as many breakages of course take place, they
are always kept busy.
Whilst serving in Rajputana and the Punjaub I often had
occasion to encamp near or pass through these villages, and I
well remember having noticed the potters at work amongst the
numerous mounds of red earth found in the neighbourhood. As
far as I recollect, the method of burning the pots was to place them
in a rough kind of kiln, and simply to heap up cakes of cow-dung
or other fuel round about them, and then to fire the heaps.
This procedure supplied sufficiently well-burnt vessels, but
naturally a great many got broken, and their debris formed con-
siderable mounds in the vicinity of the villages, which I think
sometimes reached 10 or 15 feet in height.
On seeing the "Red-hill" mounds of Salcot I was naturally
much struck by their general resemblance to those so common
about the villages of Rajputana and the Punjaub, and I venture