June 1, 1S06.J 



SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



141 



spondent (S. J. M. in 

 .ps gather the informa- 



The Chigoe.— Your corresi 

 S. G. Vol. ii, p. 47) will perhaps 

 tion he desires from the following quotation, irom 

 Waterton's Essays on Natural History, series l. 

 pa°-e 210. " The Chigoe represents a ilea : and had 

 you just come out of a dovecot, you might easily 

 mistake it for a small pigeon flea ; although upon a 

 closer inspection you would surmise that it is not 

 capable of taking those amazingly elastic bounds, so 

 notorious in the flea of Europe. Not content with 

 merely paying you a visit, and then taking itself oil 

 again, as is the custom with most insects, this 

 insidious miner contrives to work its way quite 

 under your skin, and there remains to rear a numer- 

 ous progeny. 1 once had the curiosity to watch 

 the movements of a chigoe on the back of my hand, 

 a part not usually selected by it to form a settle- 

 ment. It worked its way pretty rapidly for so small 

 an insect, In half-an-hour it had bored quite 

 through the skin, and was completely hidden Irom 

 sight," 



BLffiMONY.— What plant is it that Milton names 

 " Ha?mony " in the masque of Comus ? 



" A small unsightly root, 

 But of divine effect, he culled me out; 

 The leaf was darkish, and had prickles on it, 

 But in another country, as he said, 

 Bore a bright golden flower, hut not in this soil : 

 Unknown, and like esteem'd, and the dull swaiu 

 Treads on it daily with his clouted shoon ; 

 And yet more med'cinal is it than that moly 

 That Hermes once to wise Ulysses gave ; 

 He called it HcEmonyy 



— S. Cleveland. 



Guinea-Pig. This little animal, now so 



thoroughly domesticated in Europe, is a native of 

 the banks of the Rio Plata, in South America. It 

 is known to zoologists as Cavict cobaya, the " rest- 

 less cavy," or " variegated cavy," of Shaw. The 

 affinities of this animal are with the porcupines, since 

 it belongs to the family of Hystricidce of the order 

 Rodentia, or gnawing animals. Erom the name by 

 which it is commonly known, this creature has been 

 supposed to have come from Guinea, and to belong 

 to the pigs. Even this has appeared in print, 

 whereas the pig is a much nearer relation to the 

 horse, and the elephant, than to this little favourite 

 with the juvenile population. 



Jackdaws.— How do jackdaws manage to get 

 their young ones out of the chimneys in which they 

 so love to build their nests ? There are two nests at 

 present in the chimneys of my house, which are 

 placed eight feet down a small perpendicular flue. 

 The old birds, I suppose, manage to climb up and 

 down, but how the young ones are to get out is a 

 mystery to me. — H. 67. E. 



Parrot Eggs. — A correspondent of a Dorchester 

 paper states that an old parrot, many years in the 

 possession of Mr. James Frampton, at Wimborne, 

 about six weeks ago laid an egg pure white, and 

 last week laid another. — W. S. J. 



Proboscis oe Hawk Moth. — In answer to 

 E. M.'s inquiries respecting the proboscis of the 

 hawk-moth, I can say that several species of 

 hawk-moths which I obtained in India had a 

 double proboscis, but whether it was the case 

 with all or not 1 am unable to state.—/. W. T. 



A Erog Pound in a Clay Bed. — The Sunderland 

 Times says, "Alive frog was discovered on Tuesday, 



May Sth, in a bed of clay, in Bishopwcarmouth. 

 Some labourers, engaged in digging clay in a field in 

 Oates Street, in the west end of the borough, at a 

 depth of about fourteen feet below the surface, 

 turned up a spit of dry hard blue clay, which broke 

 to pieces, and from the midst of it hopped out a 

 frog. The little prisoner, thus suddenly released 

 from the place where he had been confined, soon 

 became extremely lively on being exposed to the air. 

 At first his colour was lighter than usually found in 

 frogs, but his hues soon began to darken as the light 

 affected him. Whether he may have been confined 

 in the place he was found for days, months, or 

 years, it is certain that he was in the midst of _ the 

 clay from which he hopped out, How he sustained 

 life there was nothing to indicate ; no cracks in the 

 clay were seen through which he could have obtained 

 a supply of fresh air." 



Preserving Larvje— The following plan was 

 recommended to me by Mr. C. S. Gregson, and is, I 

 think, much better than the usual way of pressing 

 the contents of the larva out. By this mode pupae 

 may also be emptied of their contents, a proceeding 

 which cannot be done by the other plan but with 

 great risk. Get a ball of worsted and a bodkin or 

 darning-needle, thread the worsted and insert the 

 needle in the head of the larva to be preserved 

 (after having previously killed it by immersion in 

 spirits of wine), push the needle through the larva 

 lengthwise, drawing the worsted through after it. 

 Continue to draw the worsted through the insect 

 until it comes out at the end perfectly dry ; then 

 cut off the supply of worsted, and draw the remaining 

 piece through, so as to leave the larva (or what was 

 the larva) perfectly empty. Eill the empty skin with 

 fine sea sand by means of the hole made by the 

 needle and worsted, until it is inflated to its natural 

 size, and place it in a warm dry place. When quite 

 dry, the sand may be shaken out and the skin 

 mounted on card. — Jno. W. Love. 



Birds Poisoning their Young.— My gardener 

 has just brought in from a pear-tree in the garden a 

 nest of four fine young blackbirds. In reply to a 

 suggestion of mine that the birds should be put into 

 a cage, and then hung up again in the tree, that the 

 old ones might feed them through the wires, he 

 made the greatest objection, asserting that the 

 parent birds would poison their offspring if they 

 were unable to get them out of the cage. I have 

 since spoken to Bamford, a bird-fancier here, on 

 the subject, and he not only corroborates the gar- 

 dener's assertion, but adds that all the thrush tribe 

 will do the same, and that he has of late years had 

 opportunities of observing that linnets will also 

 poison their captive young. " Up to a certain point," 

 says my informant, "the old ones will feed them all 

 right, but when the young ones are able to fly, and 

 the old birds cannot get them out of the cage, the 

 parent bird brings some poisonous seed— I think it 

 is the seed of belladonna— and at daybreak drops it 

 down the throats of all the young ones in the nest ; 

 and if you see them all right the last thing at night, 

 you will find them all dead in the morning." It may 

 be worth while to inquire if any similar occurrence 

 has come under the notice of your readers.— 7F. L. S. 



Poison-fangs of Spiders. — In reply to E. T. 

 Scott, in the last number of Science Gossip, I 

 think spiders do emit poison ; for without its aid how 

 could a fly be killed in so short a time ? A fly may 

 have pins thrust through its body, and yet appear 

 little worse for the operation ; but when once within 



