May 1, 1S6G.J 



SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



99 



wardncss of the present season, are not the facts re- 

 corded by a Tenby correspondent in the April number 

 of Science Gossip, due to local peculiarities ? At 

 any rate, the finder of primroses, violets, snowdrops, 

 daffodils, and wild strawberries, in flower before the 

 end of the first week in February, would have been 

 sadly out in his reckoning had he predicted there- 

 from an unusually early spring. We were forcibly 

 reminded of this when, on April 3rd, small hailstones 

 rattled on our hat like a shower of sugar-plums. 



Care must also be taken not to attach undue im- 

 portance to isolated occurrences which are simply 

 dependent on a temporary rise of temperature. Such, 

 for example, as the appearances of butterflies, &c, 

 in the early spring months, are often recorded. But 

 these phenomena have no seasonal value. When- 

 ever a fine, warm day occurs, as it often does in 

 February, or even January, the Brimstone butterfly 

 (Goneptcryx rhamni),thQ Small Tor toiseshell {Vanessa 

 urtiac), the hive-bee, and humble-bee, and various 

 species of small beetles, may be met with on the 

 wing. But they disappear with the sunshine, and 

 when the cold returns they hide once more in the 

 snug retreats in which they have dozed the winter 

 away. 



Turning now to points which seem worthy of being 

 classed among periodic spring phenomena, the writer 

 ventures to think that special notice should be taken 

 of the period at which trees are seen to be in leaf, 

 as indicative of the course of the season. Among 

 these, M. Quetelet, who has taken a prominent part 

 in the science of periodic observation, suggests that 

 particular attention be paid to the leafing of the fol- 

 lowing common trees of spring : — hazel, elder, alder, 

 yew, aspen, lilac, weeping willow, common elm, 

 plum, blackthorn, beech, walnut, fig, vine, oak. 



Among the plants whose mean time of flowering is 

 assigned to the month of May in the Rev. L. Jenyns's 

 valuable " Periodic Calendar " — we name only these 

 on account of space, — the following are recom- 

 mended by Quetelet : — Bugle, herb Bobert, field 

 chickweed (C. arcense), Avhitethorn, woodruff, red 

 clover, common fumitory, white jasmine, walnut, 

 celandine {Chelidonium ma jus), columbine, fly orchis, 

 upright crow-foot (E. acris), raspberry, guelder-rose, 

 and Jacob's ladder. 



The correspondence of these vegetable phenomena 

 with the arrival of migratory birds should also be 

 noted. The nidification of some birds appears to be 

 subject to strange eccentricities. Quetelet sets 

 down the nest-building of rooks as worthy of 

 special observation; yet some of these creatures 

 were so employed in the month of January in this 

 year, according to the testimony of a writer in the 

 Zoologist, while last season a pair or more were ab- 

 surd enough to build in the month of November, 

 and in the following month a thrush was actually 

 found sitting on three eggs ! 



These and many like facts indicate the importance 



of not drawing general conclusions from isolated 

 phenomena. It is only by combining a vast number 

 of observations that we can hope to succeed in 

 placing this department of inquiry upon a thoroughly 

 scientific basis. Meanwhile, let each of us do his 

 own work— observe, compare, reflect, record ; and 

 then, mayhap, in years to come, the employment 

 which now affords us so much pleasure and instruc- 

 tion, will be found to possess a value and importance 

 which we had but dimly realized. 



W. H. Grosee, B. Sc. 



MORE ODD-EISHES. 



" npHE six species of British Syngnathi recpiire 

 -■- to be ranged in two divisions; the first 

 of which includes two Marsupial pipe-fish (S. actis 

 and S. typha) having true caudal fins ; four 

 ophidial pipe-fish, which may be again divided into 

 two sections, the first of which contains two species 

 (S. cequoreus and S. anguineus), having each a rudi- 

 mentary caudal fin ; the second section, also 

 containing two species (S. opjJiidion and S. lumbri- 

 ciformis) in which there is no rudimentary caudal 

 fin, the round tail ending in a fine point." * 



Syngnathus typhle (the deep-nosed pipe-fish) 

 differs a little from its near relative {S. acus). The 

 face is more weazened and pinched, the little ver- 

 tical mouth more compressed, which, together with 

 the general flattened character of the tubular jaws, 

 the upper and under edges of which are nearly 

 parallel with the lines of the head and throat), gives 

 a crabbed, miserly expression to the ugly, hard 

 face. 



Its usual adult size appears to be about thirteen 

 inches, and the ova are transferred from the abdo- 

 men of the female to the marsupial sub-caudal 

 pouch of the male, and there hatched, in the same 

 odd fashion as we have already glanced at in 

 S. acus, in a preceding number. The ophidial pipe- 

 fish are represented, on the one hand, by S. cequoreus, 

 sequoreal pipe-fish, and S. angineus, snake pipe- 

 fish, having only a solitary fin on the back, the 

 caudal fin being only a rudimentary appendage. 

 The pouch for containing the ova is also absent ; 

 instead of which we find a kind of hollow, hemi- 

 spherical in shape, as though scooped out from the 

 hinder part of the abdomen. This singular depres- 

 sion is found only in the male fish, the females pre- 

 senting no trace of such a cavity. "All the speci- 

 mens examined, having these external hemispheric 

 cells, proved to be males ; those without external 

 depressions to be all females, internally provided 

 with two lobes of enlarged ova. The males of this 

 species, when taken by me, as late in the season as 



* Yarrell's "British Fishes," vol. ii., p. 3». 



