August 1, 1S60.] 



SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



185 



Parental Instinct. — On the 20th of June last 

 some mowers on the farm of a friend of mine in 

 Berkshire cut through the nest of a landrail, the 

 young of which had only just broken through the 

 shell. Three young birds were found to be killed by 

 the scythe ; several others were seen to run away 

 and hide themselves in the long grass. A minute or 

 two after, as the men were recommencing work, one 

 of the parent birds was seen to rush out towards the 

 nest and then rapidly retreat with something black 

 in its beak towards the high grass on a bank not 

 many feet distant. The curiosity of the men being 

 roused, they immediately searched the place where 

 the old bird was lost to view, and to their surprise 

 found one of the young without feet, both having 

 been cut off by the scythe, and in consequence quite 

 unable to run a step. This the old bird had dis- 

 covered, and conveyed to a place of safety by means 

 of its beak. — D. S. 



Curious Pood for Slugs and Snails.— A 

 small vivarium I have kept for some time contains 

 a number of specimens of Helix, Arion, Limax, and 

 others. They seem remarkably partial to pill-boxes, 

 especially the pink outer paper. They will rapidly 

 devour a large pill-box (particularly if wet), com- 

 mencing by denuding it of the piuk paper, and then 

 eating and nibbling at the edges of the bos. Some 

 of the water-snails {Limnced) seem to have the same 

 fancy for the pink paper. — C. A., Birmingham. 



The Blindworm (Anguis fragilis). — I have a 

 blindworm which is above fifteen inches long. It 

 was killed a short time back at Pen End, near 

 Knowle.— C. A., Birmingham. 



GEOLOGY. 



Stones on Mountains. — The loose angular 

 stones found so abundantly not only on the 

 Cumbrian mountains, but on very many mountains 

 elsewhere, have not been brought from a distance, 

 or rolled, by water. J. L. will find that in every 

 case they are composed of the rock which forms the 

 mass of the mountain on which they occur. All 

 rocks are traversed by joints and crevices. The 

 chief agent in opening the crevices and loosening 

 the rocks is frost ; the water which fills them in 

 winter expands on freezing, and the ice acts as 

 a wedge : when the thaw sets in, the loosened rocks 

 tumble clown a little way, or are moved by torrents 

 or heavy ram, leaving fresh surfaces of rock ex- 

 posed, to be acted upon by succeeding frosts. In a 

 lesser degree, the roots of rock-loving plants work 

 as wedges to loosen stones. Mountains composed 

 of slate are strewed with slaty debris; others, 

 formed of rocks which have fewer planes of division 

 than slate, such as trap, quartz-rock, &c, have on 

 their sides and summits such coarse stuff as that 



which suggested J. O.'s query. Good descriptions 

 of atmospheric work may be found in Campbell's 

 "Prost and Pire," and in Geikie's eloquent " Scenery 

 and Geology of Scotland."— jr. II. S. W., Dublin. 



I would suggest that " the loose masses of rough 

 sharp stones that cover the sides and summit of 

 Helvellyn," &c, are referable to the Pleistocene age, 

 and are the result of glacial action as much as the 

 water-worn boulders that bestrew our plains. Not 

 having been on the top of Helvellyn, of course I 

 speak with modesty. The phenomenon, however, I 

 have no doubt, is one form of the " Drift," and is of 

 a very local character. On Oldham Edge, a hill 

 about S00 feet above sea-level, similar appearances 

 are to be met with. The rock of which it is com- 

 posed, however, differs in age and lithological struc- 

 ture from the northern giant, being the elevated 

 out-crop of the " blendfire " rock, a member of the 

 middle coal series. This stone is much quarried for 

 building purposes, and in these works we sometimes 

 get good sections of the loose, broken, and jumbled- 

 up material of which the underlying solid bed is 

 composed. In most cases this mass of angular 

 fragments is freely mixed with a compound of fine 

 sand and mould ; but this, like the rest, is native- 

 born. Occasionally, however, we meet with a 

 stranger of foreign extraction, in the shape of a large 

 well-rounded boulder of millstone grit, limestone, or 

 some form of granite, deeply embedded in the con- 

 fused mass, and singularly striking in its loneliness 

 and its contrast with the rest. The testimony of 

 these boulders is, I think, undoubted. Admitting 

 that an Arctic climate at one time prevailed in the 

 latitude of England, we can easily imagine large 

 masses of ice breaking loose from their moorings in 

 the creeks and bays of a glacial sea ; at one time 

 sailing silent and stately in deep and smooth waters, 

 at another time stranded and labouring on the top 

 or sides of your scarcely emersed Helvellyn, and by 

 sheer weight tearing off the upturned edges of the 

 rocks, and pushing the fragments into the hollows 

 and lower levels, undivested of their angles. I have 

 seen sections in Oldham Edge where what was at 

 one time a thin-bedded rock, seemed to have been 

 pressed forward en masse, and broken only when 

 bent, a curve or crook being traceable several feet. 

 Should your correspondent J. L. ever visit Man- 

 chester or neighbourhood, on business or pleasure, 

 and will call at 27, Radclyffe-street, Oldham, I shall 

 be most happy to spend an hour with him in looking 

 over these things.— James Nield, Oldham. 



Ever and Ever, since the dry land first appeared, 

 has the sea been at its monotonous toil ; ever and 

 ever murmuring, surging, undermining, hurling down 

 the earth, night and day toiling and labouring atVork 

 even in its placid moods ; when, without a ruffle on 

 its polished face, with gently heaving breast it idly 

 chafes the pebbles of the shore.— Recreative Science. 



