190 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



ference. It is really remarkable to see bow quickly 

 the worms rise to the surfaee, and remain there 

 quite long enough to be swept up. 1 am not sure 

 if it will kill them. Our practice is to water the 

 lawns with lime-water from an ordinary watering- 

 pot, going systematically over the lawn, watering 

 somewhat heavily. As the worms come up, they are 

 gathered,— there is no difficulty in catching them, 

 and given to the poultry. The lime-water has 

 never injured the grass, « hereas I have more than 

 once done damage to it with corrosive sublimate. 

 Black-beetles are a difficulty. Poison, if numerous, 

 causes offence, from their dead bodies behind wains- 

 coting, &c. Traps (Colin Pullinger's I prefer) 

 seem the best. Can any of your correspondents 

 name a good bait ? I use bread steeped in ale. It 

 is not bad, but is not sufficiently attractive. If 

 some of your entomological correspondents could 

 help us to bait Colin Pullinger's beetle-traps, I 

 think we should beat the cockroaches. — Henry 

 Beacon. 



Destruction of Cockroaches. — I am very 

 glad to be able to tell Mr. Verney a certain yet 

 simple cure for these unwelcome guests, one that I 

 have tried, and never known to fail. Take a deep 

 dish, with smooth upright sides, say a very large 

 pie-dish ; put into it about two inches deep of beer 

 or porter, sweetened with sugar. Threepennyworth 

 of ; arsenic will be about sufficient to last four or 

 five times, if measured out into equal portions. 

 Slantingly from the edge of the dish to the floor lay 

 a coarse towel dipped in beer and sugar, so as to 

 form an easy pathway into the trap, which, if set 

 at night, will be found to contain many captives 

 before morning. We have quite relieved our house 

 from cockroaches, and many of our neighbours who 

 have adopted the plan I have just mentioned, have 

 made a clearance of large families of these pests. — 

 Barbara Wallace Fyfe, Nottingham. 



[Another correspondent (C. B.) recommends 

 Penny's Magic Paste. Others recommend reme- 

 dies too numerous to mention, and all are war- 

 ranted.] 



Public Insectakiums. — There is one branch of 

 Natural History that is very generally neglected, 

 and totally so as regards the exhibition of insects at 

 our great Zoological Gardens in the Regent's Park. 

 The insect world is a department of Natural History 

 inferior to none, and, perhaps, superior in interest 

 to many others. An insectarium, or entomologium, 

 or by any other, if more fitting, title designated, 

 could be made on a large and comprehensive 

 scale, and at much less cost, and, as I think, 

 would cause much less labour to such of the 

 keepers or attendants of our Zoological Gardens in 

 the Regent's Park who would have charge of them, 

 than any other of the creature kind in that exhi- 

 bition. I have been always a great lover of ento- 

 mology, although I do not pretend to an intimate 

 acquaintance with the habits, &c, of the insect 

 world. Yet, as a true lover of all branches of 

 Natural History, I am, perhaps, better informed 

 upon entomology than the majority of persons. 

 After reading an article (or paragraph rather) in 

 Hardwicke's Science-Gossip for April, 1871, en- 

 titled "New Introductions," it occurred to me that 

 we might acclimatize many beautiful as well as 

 marvellous forms of butterflies and moths, &c, so 

 as to exhibit them in a somewhat natural state in a 

 grand "Insectarium," or "Entomologium," house. 

 I conceive that an insectarium, &c, would be, pro- 

 bably, as attractive, if not more so, than other 



branches of Natural History, and I therefore urge 

 that a tide of public opinion may be impelled, that 

 may lead to the erection of an extensive and 

 spacious or lofty building, for the "insect world," 

 where we may study these smaller winged and un- 

 winged creatures on an extended scale. We could 

 have a hothouse insectarium, and also a temperate- 

 house insectarium, &c, in accordance with the 

 habitat or countries of insect creatures. But the 

 insects of North America, of China, Japan, and 

 other countries which possess a similar climate or 

 temperature of seasons to our own England, could 

 be reared in houses of an ordinary temperature. I 

 am not capable of devising the shape or structural 

 arrangements of an insectarium, yet I would sug- 

 gest that the floor of an insectarium should be on a 

 level with a man's or attendant's arms, so that the 

 food and other necessary adjuncts could be put in 

 easily, and without injury or annoyance to such 

 delicate and small creatures. And a central wind- 

 ing staircase might be usefully made, that would 

 enable the attendants to feed insects to which the 

 upper regions of an insectarium were most con- 

 genial. The insectarium should be lofty, in order 

 to give butterflies, moths, &c., the fullest space and 

 enjoyment of their aerial flights. Trees, plants, &c, 

 of the kinds upon which insects variously feed, 

 should be planted, either temporarily or perma- 

 nently, in the insectarium cages ; and thus we could 

 study the habits and actions of insects more per- 

 fectly than we can by our private researches and 

 contrivances. — W. M. Macpherson. 



Flint Elakes, Machine-made. — The exist 

 ence of "Palaeolithic man" in the dim obscurity of 

 far- back ages has been so strongly asserted and so 

 stoutly maintained by our advanced men of science, 

 that the judgment of the uninitiated has rather been 

 taken by storm, than convinced by the weight of the 

 evidence on which this extreme antiquity is founded. 

 This evidence is mainly derived from the chipped 

 flint " tools " of the first stone age, of which the 

 flakes form by far the largest portion. Of these it is 

 affirmed that the evidence of design is soclear " that a 

 flint flake is to the antiquary as sure a trace of man as 

 the foot-print in the sand was to Robinson Crusoe." 

 On the other hand it has been affirmed that flakes 

 result from the fracture of the flint by natural 

 causes. I can produce a truthful witness in this 

 case, whose testimony is unimpeachable and de- 

 serves to be widely known. My contractor for the 

 construction of roads at Eastbourne uses Blake's 

 stone-breaking machine for preparing the metalling, 

 composed of a large cast-iron jaw worked by a 

 steam-engine, by which the flints are crushed as 

 fast as two men can feed the machine. Erom 

 among these crushed flints I have picked out most 

 typical and perfectly formed flakes, some so small 

 as to require a glass to determine their claim to the 

 honour of being flakes, with intermediate sizes up to 

 five inches in length :— flake knives, scrapers, and 

 cores. I have inspected most of the flint-finds from 

 the Scilly Isles to Norfolk, and on the Continent 

 from Spiennes to Pressigny le Grand, but 1 have no- 

 where met with more perfect flakes as to type than 

 those crushed out by the stone- breaker. JVI any of the 

 cores also are very perfect, being surrounded by six 

 facets, from whence flakes were crushed off by one 

 undesigned blow. 1 f flint under ordinary pressure 

 splits naturally into flakes and cores, how is it pos- 

 sible to maintain the supposed evidence of design 

 on the flakes, and therefore of a designer? There 

 is no intellect in a ton of east iron; no volition in 

 a steam-engine. It is highly probable that some 



