116 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



Vanessa polyciilobos.— In the summer season 

 the Vanessa polychloros is comparatively scarce. I 

 see it occasionally, but not frequently ; but in 

 March and April hybernated specimens in excellent 

 preservation (some looking so fresh that they might 

 almost seem just out of the chrysalis) appear in 

 great profusion. I am aware that this species 

 hybernat.es very freely, but it seems to me singular 

 that it should be a rare butterfly in July and a 

 common one in March. — G. S. S. 



Bees and Soot (Science-Gossip, p. 71, 1S71). — 

 7 do not know whether bees make use of soot in 

 the manufacture of honey or not. I have seen bees 

 going into their hives covered with soot, looking as 

 though they were mourning ; but this has been 

 about the swarming time. I therefore attributed it 

 to their getting in that state while looking for 

 a habitation. — A. B. 



Robin. — Robin is, alas! dead. He died, during 

 my absence from home, rather suddenly, for he had 

 been singing away right merrily the previous even- 

 ing. I much regretted his loss, as, during my stay 

 at Llandudno, I heard that hybrid robin and 

 canaries have been reared. A chemist living in 

 Llandudno, a great bird-fancier, who occasionally 

 exhibits his pets at the Crystal Palace shows', 

 had a stuffed specimen of a robin-canary, a bird he 

 had reared, had been offered five guineas for, and 

 refused it. It had but little of robin in its plumage. 

 My hen canary has caught a few notes of poor 

 Robbie's song, and of an evening, at the time he 

 used to sing, she begins to warble them.— H. E. IF. 



English Hebbs used as a Substitute for 

 Gentian.— Apropos of " R. T., 31. J.'s" question 

 in No. 76 of Science-Gossip, 1 am happy to inform 

 him that our British flora can boast of very many 

 wild plants which are often successfully used by 

 country people in cases where a medical man would 

 most probably prescribe gentian or quinine. The 

 Willow, Salix alba, is one; its bark is both tonic 

 and astringent, and a powdered preparation of it was 

 at no very distant time given by an old woman (a 

 village Doctoress, for in those days female M.D.'s 

 were unknown) to a great number of poor people 

 afflicted with the ague. Doctoress Nelly's patients 

 recovered ; the recognized " Medicine Man's " 

 did not get on so well. iEsculapius became jealous. 

 Woman's rights had not been mooted in those 

 retired parts. A report got abroad that " old Nelly 

 was a, witch" ; in the mean time the Doctor, having 

 obtained one of the far-famed powdees, and sent 

 it up to Bristol to be analyzed, discovered that the 

 chief ingredient in it was the bark of the common 

 white willow growing by the river-side at the bottom 

 of Nelly's garden. 



" There is a willow grows aslant the brook, 

 That show* his hoar leaves in the glassy stream." 



Nelly did not make "fantastic garlands" like 

 " Ophelia," but she made decoctions and powders 

 equal in value to quinine, from her Salix alba. 

 W orm wood is another tonic. It is intensely bitter, 

 and, I should imagine, most disagreeable to take, 

 but it is given iinntermittents. A dangerous remedy, 

 I fancy, though the plant is not a poison. By the 

 way, will some kind reader of Science-Gossip set 

 me right if I am mistaken ?— but 1 believe the 



1 absinthe so drunk at one period in Paris, is made 

 from the wormwood (Artemisia Absinthium), absin- 

 thium being derived from the Greek of " without 

 delight ;" yet the Prench, by all accounts, delighted 

 in the bitterness of their favourite drink. The 

 Germans mix powdered wormwood-leaves in hot 

 beer, and give it to persons subject to epilepsy. 

 Then we have the " Slanzanilla " of Spain, the use- 

 ful camomile of our wastes, the plant which, I 

 imagine, gives its name to that particular kind of 

 sherry which medical men now recommend to 

 dyspeptic invalids. The peasantry of America (the 

 United States) give decoctions of camomile largely 

 in rheumatic attacks, the sort of rheumatism known 

 there as "fever and ague " ; and some of our own 

 M.D.s are of opinion that it is quite equal to bark 

 in intermittent fevers. Hemp-agrimony, the 

 ground- vine, tansy, and a whole host of others, are 

 native herbal tonics. Your correspondent may 

 have tasted the leaves of the last-named plant in 

 different puddings and omelets, but one of the best 

 uses to which I think it can be applied is that of 

 preserving meat from the attacks of those horrid 

 pests in hot weather to all good house-keepers 

 — flies. A few bunches hung up with uncooked 

 meat or poultry will drive the flesh-flies away — the 

 smell is not unlike camphor. — Helen G. Watney, 

 Beaumaris. 



Eield Club in South-Western London 

 (p. 92).— There is, I believe, no Pield Club in the 

 South-western suburbs. The atmosphere of London 

 seems prejudicial, and often fatal to these institu- 

 tions, which are successful enough in Liverpool and 

 Manchester. The " Society of Amateur Botanists," 

 and its successor, the " West London Pield Club," 

 have existed and perished within the last ten years ; 

 and even the North London Naturalists' Club is 

 " not so vigorous as when at first started." I should 

 be very_ willing to assist, as far as I could, in 

 establishing a society for South-west London upon a 

 firm basis.— James Britten, F.L.S., Royal Herbarium, 

 Kew. 



Eaewig (p. 91).— There can be no dispute as to 

 the appropriateness of Mr. Spicer's term, earwing ; 

 still, considering the prevalence of the idea connected 

 with the insect, the general signification of its name 

 in many European languages, and the stock from 

 whence we, as a nation, spring, might we not better 

 trace the second syllable to the Saxon wicga, a 

 worm ?— thus making the word earwig equivalent to 

 the German Ohrwurm. — E. P. P. 



The Small Eggab (Eriogaster lacustris). — In 

 reply to P. G. Binnie's question in your last 

 number, "are not instances of such great retarda- 

 tion [of emergence of imago] unusual ? " I beg to 

 say,— certainly not, in this particular species. I have 

 bred them somewhat extensively, ancl have invaria- 

 bly found that a small proportion of the pupa: do 

 not change uutil the second year. Indeed, in one 

 instance not until the third — three pupoe of 1867 

 did not become images until the spring of 1870. Last 

 summer 1 brought home a brood or two of cater- 

 pillars from a hawthorn hedge, fifty-two of which 

 became pupse in due course. Of these, twelve I gave 

 to a friend. Sixteen mrles and two females emerged 

 on February 11th ; eight males and two females on 

 the 18th ; and four females during the following 

 week ; leaving eight pupae still unchanged. Of course, 

 the reason for the retardation can only be surmised ; 

 I have seen, somewhere, this theory : that as the 



