File:Essex naturalist- being the journal of the Essex Field Club (1887) (14785050065).jpg

Identifier: essexnaturalistb08esse (find matches)
Title: Essex naturalist: being the journal of the Essex Field Club
Year: 1887 (1880s)
Authors: Essex Field Club
Subjects:
Publisher: Buckhurst Hill, Essex, The Club
Contributing Library: Harvard University, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Ernst Mayr Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Harvard University, Museum of Comparative Zoology, Ernst Mayr Library

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e adds that he has kept bees for someyears now, and the earliest swarms have happened not sooner than the latter end 88 NOTES—ORIGINAL AND SELKCTED. of May. (Two swarms came forth from the straw skeps in our garden at EastMersea on May 15th, which we considered remarkably early.—W. COLE.) Vanessa Antiopa in Epping Forest.—On Saturday, April 7th, I wasdelighted to take a hybernated specimen of the Camberwell Beauty butterfly inGreat Monk Wood, Epping Forest.—W. F. Whittingham, North View, TheDrive, Walthamstow. April 23rd, 1894. Inscribed Letters in a Tree Trunk.—In the middle of December last,during one of the heavy gales that prevailed at that time, a large elm was blowndown by the roadside near Cannock Mill, on the road to Donyland, near Col-chester, A month or so later portions of the timber were being chopped up forfirewood when a curious discovery came to light. A piece of the trunk split openunder the chopper, and revealed the letters B. P. boldly inscribed on one sur-
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INSCRIliED LETTERS IN AN ELM-TKEE. face and in clear relief on the other. The tree had in former da3^s marked theparish boundary of St. Botolphs. Bark had been cut away and a plane surfaceof wood levelled, on which the letters had been cut. The bark appears to havecrept over and covered up the inscription, and the growing wood fibre of the treehad buried the letters deeper and deeper into the tree trunk. I have heard of astory, whether apochryphal or not 1 cannot tell, about a somewhat similar incident,though of a more romantic character, the following suggestive lines having beensimilarly incised in the heart of a piece of timber : Long shall this tree witness bearWe two lovers walked here.The discovery at Colchester has led me to wonder whether other parish boundarymarks have not been tree-swallowed in the same way. The present instanceshows that such cases could he detected without cutting the tree down, for theoutside scar would never be completely covered up. 1 am on the look out

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