NOTES & OBSERVATIONS
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by parasites. One unfortunate female was found in the pond with five males clinging to her. By 31st March all was quiet again with not a single toad to be seen in the pond or its surroundings. Francis Simpson (Mr. Simpson is not alone in seeing a large number of frogs this spring. Mrs.Gertrude Townsend has an ornamental concrete pond in her garden in Bury St. Edmunds measuring 8 ft X 4 ft at its widest points. In late March it was a seething mass of frogs, creating considerable danger to the goldfish and Common Newts which normally inhabit it. I assisted her in removing some of the frogs (and some of the spawn) and we released about 30 in Hardwick pond on the south edge of Bury St. Edmunds and a similar number in a newly-cleared pond in the forest to the north-east of the Country Park at West Stow. The tadpoles have a better chance of survival in the forest pond than in the Hardwick pond, which often has duck on it. Mrs. Townsend usually has a good tadpole population in her pond, but many are taken by Blackbirds. Editor.) More bird-seed aliens Mrs. F. Edmonds has again recorded an interesting crop of bird-seed aliens in her garden at Clare. To mention only those not published in 1986 and none of several fairly common bird-seed species, Mrs. Edmonds discovered about half-a-dozen plants oiAmmi majus L., Bullwort, a white umbellifer, and one plant of Galium spurium L., False Cleavers. Both were confirmed by Dr. J. L. Mason, who had not seen G. spurium in bird-seed before. One flowering plant of Crepis setosa Haller f., Bristly Hawksbeard, appeared and its identity was confirmed by Mrs. R. Phillips. Another interesting find was Torilis nodosa (L.) Gaertn., Knotted Hedge Parsley, which is known to be an occasional bird-seed alien (Hanson & Mason, 1985). The record for Galium spurium is, irrespective of source, the first for Suffolk. H b E . & M . H . Reference Hanson, C. G . & Mason, J. L. (1985). Bird-seed aliens in Britain. Watsonia 15,237. E. M. Hyde An interesting moss in Suffolk The moss, Leptodontium gemmascens (Mitt, ex Hunt) Braithw., was once known only on rotting straw-thatched roofs, but in recent years it has been found on acid heathland soil in Hertfordshire and on decaying False Oatgrass, Arrhenatherum elatius, in Middlesex. After seeing it growing at the latter site. Dr. A. J. Harrington of the British Museum (Natural History) and I found it growing on rotting fallen stems of Common Rush, Juncus effusus, Trans. Suffolk Nat. Soc. 24