50 THE ESSEX NATURALIST.
Stains of various colours other than blue are also due to
fungi; in some instances only is the causal organism known.
Cartwright and Findlay [8] suggest that the yellow stain des-
cribed by Hubert [20] as due to a species of Penicillium, of the
divaricatum group, may be similar to, if not the same, fungus as
that described by Williamson [38] in golden oak.
Although fungi parasitic in the cambium cannot be classed
strictly as wood fungi, abnormal growth of the wood may occur
as a result of their activities, so that they may appropriately
be mentioned here. Investigations into the bird's eye figure
in maple are described by Hale [16]; it is due to a fungus which
destroys small patches of the cambium. New wood is formed in
the usual way by the cambium around these dead areas, so that
the surface of the wood, instead of remaining smooth, is marked
by a series of depressions which correspond to areas of cambium
which have been destroyed. In time new cambium replaces
that which has been killed, and new wood is formed in the
depressions, but since the surrounding wood is still being added
to the depressions tend to remain. Wood cut tangentially from
such a tree will show in consequence the bird's eye figure, not
because it contains actual pits, but because of the irregular
course of the wood elements here as compared with the more or
less straight course of the elements of the surrounding wood.
It is probably safe to suggest that certain other types of figure
in wood, at present explained as due to irregularities in growth,
will be discovered, on investigation, to be produced in much
the same manner as bird's eye maple.
(To be continued).
Short-Fared Owl at Felsted.—On December 8th, 1937, while
in company with Mr. Hugh Cloughton, I had a good view of a Short-eared
Owl (Asio flammeus flammeus) on some rough ground near Felsted. This
is only the third example of this uncommon winter-visitor that I have noted
at Felsted since 1907.—J. H. Owen.