July], 1866.] 



SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



153 



STICKLEBACK BREEDING. 



HAVE received a most interesting- letter from 

 -*- Mr. W. A. Lloyd, the manager of the Hamburg 

 aquaria, and as one of the paragraphs bears on the 

 point of stickleback breeding in confinement, I 

 extract it for the benefit of your readers : — " What 

 you say about Alpheus ruber greatly interests me. 

 1 would walk many miles to see so rare an animal, 

 especially if alive. I am also much pleased to read 

 your observations about Gonoplax angulation, and I 

 must try to get some, and see if they will behave simi- 

 larly with me. You have been more lucky than I ever 

 have with the fifteen-spincd stickleback {Gaster- 

 osteus spinaclua), as with me it only begins to build 

 a nest in spring, but it is never finished, and I get 

 no young ones, and I have the same want of success 

 with the various freshwater species of the genus. 

 But 1 possess a nice coloured drawing, full size, of 

 a very beautiful nest of G. spinaclua found at 

 Heligoland, and of this I want somebody to send a 

 copy to H. S. G., giving directions that the wood-cut 

 shall show the numerous threads with which it is 

 carefully sown together ; the creature making a 

 needle of itself in order to do tlie marvellous bit of 

 stitching." The stickleback is a delicate animal 

 in confinement at the breeding-time ; but your cor- 

 respondent, who limits the life of Gasterosteus spi- 

 na ehia to twelve months, is quite wrong. 



I believe animals of the genus Salella cast their 

 gill-jaws periodically. I have three very handsome 

 ones, who have lately cast their jaws. I brought 

 them from the sea in September. They increased 

 the diameter of their jaws nearly double (from 

 good living, I presume), and then, when at their 

 greatest beauty, cast them, and the tiny, tiny new 

 ones are just beginning to appear. 



Three very interesting cases of animals building 

 habitations in any aquaria have occurred lately. 

 The first, that very beautiful annelide, Atnphitriie 

 infundibulum, who, though an inhabitant of foul, 

 black mud on his native shores, made himself at 

 home in the ordinary white sand of one of my 

 aquaria. The second case is a large, handsome, 

 orange-coloured Terebella, who was dredged in a 

 tube attached., to an old oyster shell. He left 

 that and built his new house against the side of 

 one of my tanks, thus enabling me to watch all his 

 motions through the glass side of his tube. It is 

 wonderful to see his thin, delicate tentacles coiling 

 themselves round, and lifting the stones and frag- 

 ments of shell required for building his tube. The 

 other animal, whose building habits I have been fortu- 

 nate enough to have had the opportunity of observing 

 is a large species of Sabella, whose scientific name I 

 cannot certainly discover, but I have several of them, 

 and their tube is built of agglutinated sand, and is 

 generally three or four times the length of their 

 (contracted) body, and closed at one end. 



Two handsome specimens of Gonoplax angulata 

 fought for supremacy in my aquaria in July last : 

 each lost one of the large claws. In one of the 

 specimens this claw is now perfectly reproduced, 

 iu the other it is hardly grown at all. This differ- 

 ence of constitution in the two animals is very 

 singular. I notice with great interest what Mr. 

 Lloyd says of the great size anemones grow to 

 with liberal feeding. In the aquarium of a friend 

 of mine (an eminent sculptor) lives the most mag- 

 nificent venusta I ever saw, and I have two 

 Corynactis viridis, whose diameter of disc, exclusive 

 of tentacles, is nearly the size of a shilling. I am 

 endeavouring to ascertain the different varieties of 

 colour in Corynactis. I have had twenty-six myself. 

 Would any of your readers trouble themselves to 

 send me any ? I would send a travelling-basket for 

 them. 



The sand-launce has very funny ways in an 

 aquarium. He darts in and out of the sand like 

 an arrow, and frequently lies for hours with his 

 head just peeping out from the top of the sand. 



S. W., E.Z.S. 



COWSLIPS. 



TDELOVED by the couutry children, to whom 

 -*-' "Cowslip balls" are, as each spring comes 

 round, an ever new delight, requiring the exercise 

 of such careful manipulation, such judgment in the 

 selection of flower-heads, and such patience in 

 manufacturing, but, when completed, amply reward- 

 ing the maker by their rich, golden green hue, and 

 delicious fragrance, we can well imagine that to 

 any of them, separated, it may be by sickness, from 

 the meadows, where the " sweet wagging cowsbps " 

 hang their heads, Spring is but a name without a 

 reality. All children, indeed, seem to delight in 

 Cowslips, or " peggles," as they are called in Essex ; 

 and, in one country town which we could name, 

 we trust also in many more, there are ladies who go 

 in parties to the Cowslip-loved fields and rob them 

 of their flowery treasures ; that, sent off in hampers 

 to the children's ward in one of the hospitals of dark 

 and flowerless London, the heart of the country- 

 bred child may delight in, and the hand may fondle, 

 and — for children are destructive animals of no 

 mean order— pick to pieces, and thus enjoy the well- 

 loved blossoms. Costly toys would fail to give the 

 pleasure which a simple hamper of Cowslips affords. 

 Let us look for a few moments at some of the 

 interesting abnormal forms which we have noticed 

 during the present season. " Pin-centres and rose- 

 centres " belong to the Cowslip as well as to the 

 Primrose, though in the former, our own observa- 

 tions lead us to believe that in this (Wycombe) 

 neighbourhood the "pin-centres" predominate. The 

 stem of the Cowslip frequently presents some interest- 



