40 



SCIENCE -GOSSIT. 



[Feb. 1, 1SC6. 



ZOOLOGY. 



A January Butterfly. — In proof of the extreme 

 mildness of the season, I captured yesterday (Jan. 

 8th), at Falkington, Lincolnshire, two small tortoise- 

 shell butterflies (JJrtica Vanessa), which I have alive 

 at this time. I may also mention that I have several 

 carnations in full bloom in the open air — a circum- 

 stance almost unprecedented in these parts in the 

 month of January. — /. Bennett, Vicar of Walcot. 



Pussy Predilections. — Our "puss" has a litter 

 of seven, occupied solely at present in search of 

 nourishment and daylight, being but a few days old. 

 Their mamma found them a "big brother" in a 

 young rat, who very contentedly shared their bed. 

 On his removal to some distance, the foster-mother 

 followed, and carefully lifting him in her mouth, 

 returned with him to her blood relations, and when 

 again deprived of him for the common good, parted 

 with him with great reluctance. This, together with 

 her having quite recently given birth to a litter 

 strongly illustrative of the Darwinian theory — one 

 being without a tail, another with that appendage of 

 its ordinary proportions, whilst those of the inter- 

 vening members of the family were of intermediate 

 sizes — will probably induce you to immortalize her 

 in your pages as "the wonderful cat." — T. J. B. 



Du Chaillu's Little Men. — M. du Chaillu has 

 returned from his expedition to Western Equatorial 

 Africa, and on the Sth of January gave au account 

 of his journey at the meeting of the Geographical 

 Society, on which occasion he stated that he had 

 met with a singular diminutive wandering tribe— a 

 kind of negro-gipsies, of lighter colour than the 

 negroes, and having shorter hair on the head, and 

 hairy bodies. The average height of the women, a 

 few individuals of whom he measured, was only 

 4ft. 4in. to 4ft. Bin. 



Zoological Gardens. — We regret to learn that 

 the late snow-storm did considerable damage at the 

 Zoological Gardens, Regent's Park, by breaking 

 down some of the aviaries, and permitting the 

 valuable pheasants to escape. Unfortunately some 

 of these birds perished, and a collection, believed to 

 be the most unique in Europe, in this particular 

 group, has suffered greatly. 



Sparrows Roosting. — Two sycamore-trees in 

 front of the Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb, in 

 the Old Kent Road, are the nightly resort of an 

 immense number of sparrows. When passing the 

 trees at sunset, it is well worth stopping to watch 

 the birds chattering and fighting for places, and then 

 one by one tucking their little heads under their 

 wings, until at length the noisy assemblage becomes 

 quite still and quiet. At this season, as the trees 

 are bare of leaves, the whole scene is visible to those 

 passing below. — IF. 11. Tate. 

 Woodcocks in North Europe.— In Science 



Gossip, vol. i., page 47, we are told that in the 

 "dwarf birch scrub" of Lapland and Finland nests 

 of woodcocks are to be found " in thousands." 

 My own knowledge of those countries extends, in 

 point of time, over a long two years, spent with 

 gun in hand ; and, in point of range, from the 

 " Naze of Norway " to North Cape, and thence 

 eastward to the frontier districts of Russia. In 

 the many hundred miles of " birch scrub," which 

 I have carefully hunted for willow grouse (Tet. 

 Saliceti), I never so much as once found a wood- 

 cock's nest. Throughout the whole of Scandinavia 

 proper, and the regions conterminous, woodcocks 

 are decidedly scarce; and whenever I have 

 found them it has been in tall, boggy pine forests, 

 but very rarely even there. I have seen perhaps 

 two in a day, but much more frequently none. 

 It is my belief that by very far the larger portion 

 migrate from and to the regions to the east- 

 ward of the Bothnian Gulf. Throughout the whole 

 of Lapland it never occurred to me to flush a 

 common suipe. " Solitary snipe " I have found in 

 some places abundantly. In the Morea, in 1843, 

 in about five weeks of January and February, 

 with very little aid, I shot 540 woodcocks, and 

 Colonel C. Fitzhardinge Berkeley, Scots Fusilier 

 Guards, who was travelling with me, shot over 300 

 in the same time. I have occasionally found wood- 

 cocks' nests in the large forests near Canterbury.— 

 iV. Chichester Oxenden. 



Visitation of Spiders. — I again venture to 

 trouble you with a few notes on the visitation of 

 spiders, referred to by W. H. H. in the January 

 Gossip, and introduced by me in the December 

 number. It may not be uninteresting to state 

 that a colony of spiders visited Newcastle-on- 

 Tyne on the 15th of October, and another colony of 

 spiders, of apparently the same species, visited 

 Bilston, in Staffordshire, on the same day in num- 

 bers that a correspondent describes as incalculable. 

 Another correspondent, residing at Blackburn, states, 

 that on a Sunday afternoon, to the best of his re- 

 membrance, the 15th of October, he saw immense 

 numbers of a similar spider in that locality ; and 

 now we are informed by W. H. H. that on the 12th 

 of November he saw swarms of small black aerial 

 spiders in and near Victoria Park, London. With 

 the exception of myself, none of the gentlemen re- 

 ferred to seem to have collected and preserved 

 specimens, and this is the more unfortunate as micro- 

 scopic investigations alone would enable a naturalist 

 to determine whether or not the spiders seen in 

 distant places were of the same species, the number 

 of species being very great, and there being a close 

 resemblance between them. The only notice of this 

 particular species of spider with which I am ac- 

 quainted, published prior to that in the December 

 Science Gossip, is written by Mr. Blackwell in the 

 "Annals of Natural History," vol. xii., page 266, 



