184 



SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



LAugust 1, 1866. 



ZOOLOGY. 



Erozen Eisir. — During a very severe frost a few 

 winters ago, some gudgeons, which had been kept 

 alive in a fish-can filled with water, became com- 

 pletely frozen : the water was literally a mass of 

 ice, and I was obliged to cut the fish out with a 

 hatchet. Concluding that they were dead, I threw 

 them upon a manure-heap, slightly covering them 

 with straw ; a few hours afterwards I passed by the 

 heap, and upon turning over the straw, I found to 

 my great surprise that the fish were alive and brisk. 

 I put them into fresh water, where they soon 

 perfectly recovered ; apparently none the worse for 

 their contact with Jack Erost. The warmth of the 

 dunghill doubtless revived them. In a book pub- 

 lished in 1851 by Routledge, entitled "Sir John 

 Eranklin and the Arctic Regions," a somewhat 

 similar circumstance is mentioned at page 45. It is 

 as follows: — "The fishing failed as the weather 

 became more severe, and was given up on the 5th 

 of November. About 1,200 white fish, of from two 

 to three pounds, had been procured during the 

 season. The fish froze as they were taken from the 

 nets, becoming in a short time a ' solid mass of ice, 

 so that a blow or two of the hatchet would easily 

 split them open, when the intestines might be 

 removed in one lump. If thawed before the fire, 

 even after being frozen for nearly two days, the 

 fish would recover their animation." — H. Wright, 

 Tlmxton Rectory, Norfolk. 



Cuckoo {Cuculus canorus) —It has long been a 

 matter of dispute among ornithologists whether the 

 cuckoo lays her egg in the nest of the adopted 

 parent, or introduces it by her claws or beak. I 

 have long been convinced that the cuckoo introduces 

 her egg into some nests, if not into all, by her beak. 

 During the last four years I have had the opportunity 

 of seeing two nests into which it was not possible 

 for the parent to get to lay her egg. They were 

 both in holes in a garden wall, and one of the young 

 ones was obliged to leave the nest before it could 

 fly at all, and take up its post in a currant bush, 

 where he was fed by his foster parents, the hole 

 being too small for him. This month (July, 1866) 

 I have had frequent opportunities of inspecting a 

 young cuckoo that has been hatched in a wagtail's 

 nest. The nest is placed in a hole of a barn wall, at 

 Eullgates, the residence of R. Burton, Esq., in this 

 village, and the bird quite fills up the hole now, 

 when eight days old. Seen from the fold-yard, he 

 looks like a bundle of feathers, except when he 

 opens his mouth, when he is decidedly of an open 

 countenance. The hole is a scaffold-hole, and the 

 nest is placed back in it six inches, so that it would 

 be impossible for either the parent to get into the 

 hole to lay her egg, or for her to introduce it by 

 her claws. 



Eish Mortality.— In the Globe of July 3rd 

 there was a small paragraph noticing the death of 

 several salmon by thunderstroke during the late 

 intensely hot weather. On July 1st I noticed several 

 hundred roach lying dead in the canal here. It 

 could hardly be the result of poisoning, because 

 there are numbers of tench in the same water, and 

 if it had been poisoned, why should the tench have 

 escaped its deadly effects ? I saw, however, no 

 tench among ^hye ranks of the roach, which appeared 

 in many cases To have died in convulsive struggles, 

 as their bodies were distorted and curved. They 

 had all turned on their side and floated to the top, 

 except where they were caught in the weeds. This 

 may be a parallel case to that of the salmon above 

 quoted, and only needs confirmation by records of 

 similar occurrences in other parts of the country. — 

 A. J. N. Macdonald. 



"As Scabbed as a Cuckoo" is a common 

 saying in Yorkshire, and I certainly never had hold 

 of any living thing from which such an amount of 

 scurf comes off as from a young cuckoo. Of all 

 young birds, the young of the cuckoo seems to be 

 longest in being able to "fend" for himself; for 

 long after they leave their nests they follow their 

 foster parents about, making constant demands 

 upon them for food. The young ones linger in this 

 country until September and October, and they have 

 been shot when snow was on the ground ; but these 

 may have been very late birds. I once found one 

 myself in August in a tit-lark's nest ; and if, as a 

 friend of mine thinks, they are two months before 

 they can forage for themselves, this bird might reason- 

 ably be expected to be in this country in November. 

 If all who are interested in ornithology would give 

 their attention next season to the collection of facts 

 respecting this bird, we might be able to come to 

 something like a correct estimate of the habits and 

 instincts of this interesting spring visitor. — John 

 Ranson, Linton-on-Ouse, York. 4 



The Spotted Elycatcher. — Books assign the 

 third week in May as the time of the arrival of this 

 summer visitor, and my own observation used to 

 accord with them. But in the spring of last year, 

 persons on whom I can thoroughly depend, and not 

 at all likely to be mistaken, assure me that they saw 

 one on May 3rd. This year one was seen at the 

 same place on April 29 th, and I myself saw one on 

 May 4th. Have any of your readers seen similar 

 instances of their arriving so much earlier than 

 usual ? The locality of which I am speaking is in 

 North Lincolnshire, near the Dumber.— John Byron, 

 Killingholme Vicarage. 



Insects at Sea. — During a voyage to the Cape, 

 about 300 miles from the coast of Africa, a large 

 dragon-fly came on board, the weather quite calm. 

 — E. T. Scott. 



