HARLWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



Ill 



of these Floscules fringing both sides of the filaments 

 of myriophyllum, their transparent; houses, of a 

 pale, bluish tint, distinctly visible against the dark 

 background— rendered more distinct in some cases, 

 and coloured a darkish brown by the adherence of 

 foreign matter— the long tufts of hair extending to 

 a great length from the ends of the five (or in 

 some cases four) projecting lobes ! 



These tufts had not, so far as I saw, any inde- 

 pendent motion; they are not cilise, but bristles; 

 they act as funnels, from out of which unhappy 

 monads entering never escape. 



But, though motionless in themselves, yet, after 

 an insect has entered within their limits, they are 

 bent inwards by a simultaneous motion of the lobes 

 towards the centre, and the insect, which has been 

 swimming about freely in the cup formed below the 

 lobes, is forced into the rapacious mouth, speedily 

 smashed up and devoured. The ciliary motion (if 

 any) in Flosculwia ornata is somewhere at the base 

 of the silex, for the insects which get between the 

 tufts, and were unable to escape through them, 

 were drawn downwards by a perceptible ciliary 

 motion, though the cilise are not themselves visible. 

 However, I am not sure of the correctness of this 

 observation, for on a subsequent day, November 22, 

 I made— as the result of the examination of some 

 hundreds of Eloscules— the following note:— The 

 smaller fishes which are so freely devoured appear 

 unable to escape after once entering the funnel of 

 hairs; but there is certainly no ciliary motion 

 sufficient to impede their movements, or direct 

 them in any perceptible degree. They swim 

 naturally and freely within the funnel. It seemed 

 that the Fioseule permitted this until the fish 

 presented his head— end on— to the throat, when, 

 by a suddeii convulsive contraction of all the lobes 

 which bend inwards towards each other, and a 

 spasmodic action and opening of the throat — like a 

 child straining at a cherry— the fish shoots in in a 

 moment, and is seen no more. I watched this 

 interesting process when monads were swimming 

 about together in the funnel of a large Eloscule. 

 But I must spare you further gossip. If yon would 

 see a sight of beauty never to be forgotten, examine, 

 under a black ground condenser some filaments 

 of Myriophyllum, fringed with a forest of Elos- 

 cules : you could not soon forget it. Of all 

 the hundreds which I examined there was not one 

 without eggs — some had four, most of them five— 

 about half way up the pedicle— none at the bottom. 



E. S. 



Eakly Appearance or the Cuckoo. — In com- 

 pany with two friends I saw the cuckoo at Bred- 

 wardine, Hereford, on March 23rd. It was also 

 heard on the same day at Eardisley, five miles 

 distant from Bredwardine.— Rev. R. Blight. 



ZOOLOGY. 



Newts.— The Smooth-newt (Lissotritonpvnctatus, 

 Daud.) is the commoner of our native species of the 

 family Salamandrad®. It is a very pretty little 

 creature, inhabiting almost every pond, river, and 

 ditch of any importance in this country. The flat- 

 tened form of the tail, the less graceful body, and the 

 more sluggish movements of the newt, easily dis- 

 tinguish it from the Lizards (Lacertada), with 

 which, not always by the ignorant, the former 

 creature is often confounded. In the earlier stages 

 of existence, the young of the newts, or tadpoles, 

 breathe by means of gills (branchiae), as is also the 

 case with the tadpoles of the frog [liana temporaria, 

 Linn.) ; they are placed in tufts or branches, at the 

 side of the head, and are beautiful objects for micro- 

 scopic examination. The crest of the male is seen 

 to perfection at the breeding season, which is in 

 early spring, when it is beautifully ridged and 

 spotted, but it disappears in summer. Last month 

 I obtained seven newts from a pond on Barnes 

 Common, four males and three females ; three of 

 them, by dint of perseverance, managed to scale the 

 slippery surface of the basiu, and escaped. The 

 following two days were very warm, and one of 

 these gentlemen was found in the conservatory dried 

 up like a mummy ; the whole body was greatly dis- 

 torted as if the animal had died in great agony. I 

 have not succeeded in finding the other two. My 

 newts have to content themselves with common 

 worms from the garden, blood-worms being not too 

 common in our neighbourhood. The reptiles seize 

 the worm by the middle, which disappears by a suc- 

 cession of snaps down the gullet (oesophagus). This 

 occupies several minutes. In the centre of the tub, 

 where I keep them, I have placed a large piece of 

 flint, the summit of which appears above the surface 

 of the water ; the animals climb up this, and will 

 remain on it in the same position for hours, and 

 will not stir, not even when I take out the aforesaid 

 piece of flint, and hoist it in the air. Can any of 

 the readers of Science-Gossip inform me of the 

 habits of the Great Warty-newt (Triton cristatus), 

 if they differ from those of the Smooth-newt ? I 

 have read that the latter reptile sometimes becomes 

 the prey of the former. The Gigantic Salamander 

 (Sieboldtia maxima) is, I believe, the largest of this 

 group. I have seen the specimens of this creature 

 at the Zoological Gardens. They are extremely 

 sluggish, and feed on fish. Though I have watched 

 them several times, they have always been motion- 

 less at the bottom of the pond. The fish on which 

 they are fed swim close up to and around them, ap- 

 parently without any sign of dread. These speci- 

 mens were obtained from the lakes in the mountain 

 districts of Japan— E. Raise, Notting Hill. 



