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ation takes place by throwing out the radiating filaments which eventually again produce the sporangia which sink as before mentioned, This little alga is well figured in English Botany, tab. 1878, under name of Conferra echinatata from Specimens sent in 1804 from a lake in Anglesea. Its proper systemic place is in Roth’s genus Birularia At Colomere and Whitemere Mr. Leighton also pointed out the singular green "Moor Balls," which are found in abundance at the bottom of these lakes, and in Alpine lakes, in North Wales, and in other counties. "They consist of an articulated Conferva, (said Mr. Leighton,) which, by the action of being rolled about the bottom of the lake by winds and currents of water, forms rounded agglomerations, varying in size from a walnut to a cricket-ball." Mr. Leighton also observed on the stonework and steps of the terraces at Oteley, large masses of dense black stains, some of which he scraped off, and on microscopic examination at home, found it to he a collemaceous lichen, termed Synalissa picina, Nyl., which has never before been detected in Great Britain.

Shropshire Archæological and Natural History Society.—The members had a very pleasant summer excursion on July 8th. The first point of interest visited was Tong Church, the Hon. and Rev. J. R. Orlando Bridgeman acting as conductor to the party. It contains some interesting monuments, chief among which is an alabaster one to the memory (it is supposed) of Sir Richard Vernon and his lady, and another to the memory of Sir Thomas Stanley, on which are the lines commencing "Not monumental stone preserves our fame." Donington was next visited. The church there is now being restored. The Rector, the Rev. H. G. De Bunsen, received and guided the party through the church, in which there is an ancient window supposed to represent "Our Lord and His Mother," in the fleur de lys costume of A.D. 1280-1300. The party proceeded to "Whiteladies," now a ruin, but once a flourishing convent of Cistercian nuns. It contains some interesting monuments. Boscobel House next occupied the attention of the party. Here it was that Charles II. found shelter after the battle of Worcester in 1651. Much interest was, as usual, centred in the "Royal Oak" tree, in which the King is said to have bid himself while Cromwell's troopers were in search of him. Whether the present safely-guarded tree is the one which afforded a hiding-place to the royal fugitive is a matter of controversy. Mr. De Bunsen quoted the Rev. G. Plaxton, Vicar of Donington, 1690-1703, who in his day spoke of "the poor remains of the Royal Oak” being fenced in; Blount, Evelyn, and other authorities, who all spoke of the way in which the original and had been robbed by relic-hunters, &c. On the other hand, Mr. De Bunsen read a letter from the Earl of Bradford, in which his lordship discarded the usual stories of the owl flying out of the tree, and of a willow being placed in its branches on which the King reclined; as also he did the equally—as his lordship thought—untrustworthy accounts of the destruction of the tree. In his lordship's family it had been handed down from father to son that the tree was the same as that up which the King, suddenly disturbed when out with the Penderels, hastily climbed: which was described as a growing oak. Nine years after, when the restoration came, the tree was well known, and when the coppice was thinned it was preserved. From father to sun amongst the tenantry it had been known, and his lordship, who had known the tree for fifty years, was strongly of opinion that the tree itself bore evidence of being of the necessary age, and not a sapling from the original tree. The lower branches had, doubtless, been cut away, but not to the extent described. An article appeared in the Gardeners' Chronicle, September, 1866, in which the writer holds that the opinion that the tree is a "seedling" is absurd. He goes in for the great age of the existing tree as enthusiastically as Lord Bradford does. He measured the tree to be 11ft. in circumference, but does not say at what height from the ground; and as "18ft. at the crown, and, perhaps, 20ft. more to the top." The Rev. J. Brooke, in 1857, measured it, at 4ft. from the ground, to be 11ft. 4in. in girth: and, with the assistance of an experienced timber merchant, who carefully compared it with other trees, came to the conclusion that it was not then more than 150 years old. Amongst other authorities who had written about the tree, Mr. De Bunsen quoted Dr. Charlett, of Oxford, who saw it in 1702, and who described if as "the trunk of the Royal Oak now enclosed within a round wall," on which Mr. Dale (who was appointed curate of Donington in 1811,} writing in 1845, remarked "truncus, a stump, stock,