288 NOTES.—ORIGINAL AND SELECTED.
of nectar on the lower parts of the plant might also serve to
keep the ants and other wingless insects from feeding at the
flowers where they would do little good as agents of cross
fertilisation.
Extra floral nectaries are found on the Bird Cherry and
Guelder Rose.
Observations on the extra-floral nectaries of British plants
are to be found scattered through botanical literature, and Lord
Avebury alluded to them in his British Flowering Plants, which
appeared since the above observations were made.—Henry
Whitehead, B.Sc., Essex Museum of Natural History.
Rare Ferns in the Colchester District.—I have long known
of a locality for Asplenium ruta-muraria in the Colchester district
(Gibson's No. 8), but I had overlooked the fact that it is not
given as growing there either in Gibson or in the county Victoria
History list. It therefore seems worth recording that I have seen
it growing in several places well within the bounds during the
present month. I was also very pleased to discover last week
a new station for Asplenium adiantum-nigrum. In the old localities
at West Bergholt and Stanway, where it grew formerly, it was
long ago grubbed up, and I had never been able to find it till I
came upon it quite expectedly last week.—W. H. Harwood,
Colchester, October 29th, 1908.
INSECTS.
Dark form of the Peppered Moth in Epping Forest.—In
connection with the progressive melanism exhibited of late years
by the Peppered Moth (Amphidasis betularia, var. doubledayana),
it may be of interest to record that on June 12th, 1909, I was
shown a living specimen, just found at rest on a beech trunk in
Little Monk Wood, Epping Forest, which was wholly black
except for two minute white spots at the junction of the wings
with the thorax, and two somewhat larger white spots on the
head.—Percy G. Thompson, Loughton.
[End of Volume XV.]