August 1, 1S66.J 



SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



189 



NOTES AND aUEEIES. 



ELemony— Perhaps the following passage from 

 Coleridge will be acceptable to J. Cleveland :— It 

 is found in the study of the Old and New Testament, 

 if only it be combined with a spiritual partaking- ot 

 the Redeemer's blood, of which, mysterious as the 

 symbol may be, the sacramental wine is no new or 

 arbitrary memento. This is the only certain, and 

 this the universal preventive of all debasing super- 

 stitions : this the true harmony (aipa, blood, oIvoq 

 wine) which our Milton has beautifully allegorized 

 in a passage strangely overlooked by all his commen- 

 tators." He will also find mention made of a plant 

 called Hemionion in Pliny's Nat. Hist., book 25, 

 ch. 5; book 2(3, ch. 7; book 27, ch. 5 ; and in 

 one of those passages said to be the Spleenwort or 

 Asplenium. I am indebted to " Notes and Queries," 

 1850, for these notices.— Lester Lester, Monkton 

 Wyld. 



Little Spiders — On inspecting a friend's fern- 

 ery the other day, I saw depending from a frond of 

 the common male fern what appeared to be a little 

 ball of golden down. I touched it, and instantly 

 the whole mass was in motion. It turned out to be 

 an agglomerated mass of tiny golden spiders, bound 

 together by a very fine web, and as soon as they 

 were disturbed they dropped like a shower of gold- 

 dust, and scattered in all directions. Perhaps some 

 of your correspondents can answer the following 

 queries for me : — 1. The spiders were about the size 

 of the little scarlet "money-spinners," that are so 

 common in the summer, and of a bright golden co- 

 lour. To what species do they belong ? 2. Is it the 

 nature of all spiders to be thus gregarious at some 

 period of their existence, or is this quality peculiar 

 to this particular species ?— A. J. N. Macdonald. 



Thee Progs.— It is stated by Mr. G. Guyon in 

 vour December number, that some green tree frogs 

 in his possession are not in the habit of jumping at a 

 pencil or other object moved in front of them, as the 

 other frogs are. I beg to state that I succeeded in 

 capturing four on some trees round a pond near here, 

 which I feed entirely upon flies; but these will 

 jump many times in succession at almost any moving 

 thing in, or just outside, the vase in which they are 

 kept. Thus, whenever I kill by accident any flies 

 which I am collecting for them, I stick them upon 

 the point of a pencil and move it in front of one of 

 them, which is almost sure to take it. They very 

 often change their colour to deep brown, but always 

 regain their beautiful bright green. What is the 

 cause of this ? Do they sleep through the winter ? 

 If so, how am I to treat them ? If not, what food 

 is suitable for them ? How is the male to be distin- 

 guished from the female ? Perhaps some reader of 

 Science Gossip will kindly answer these ques- 

 tions in your next number, and I shall be very glad 

 of any hints on the subject. I have also taken five 

 young ones, just losing their tails. I have had them 

 about three days, and they have apparently eaten 

 nothing since ; they will not take flies ; what ought 

 I to give them ? They seem quite fat and healthy. 

 —E.G. Wheler, 4, Rue de la Fontaine, Dijon. 



Suicidal Jackdaws.— Can any of your numerous 

 subscribers inform me of a method of keeping 

 tame daws from drowning themselves ? Out of five 

 which I have known during the last two years, four 

 have managed to drown themselves (two in water- 

 butts, one 'in a pond, and the fourth in the fountain 

 in a conservatory). — C. J. B. 



Presiiwater Sponges.— Mr. Lloyd's passing al- 

 lusion in Science Gossip for May, to my query of 

 some months back, escaped my notice until after his 

 reference to it last month. The unexpected ap- 

 pearance of some little patches of living sponge on 

 a dead piece I had left submerged during the 

 winter, led me to similar conclusions, and if any of 

 your readers who may not have the means of 

 obtaining specimens, like to forward stamps for 

 postage, I shall be happy to rob my hunting fields 

 of enough to colonize any number of aquariums 

 next spring. Save me only from such neophytes 

 as assiduously empty their tanks every month or so, 

 though these are hardly likely to take an interest in 

 sponges.— Fred. H. Meggy, Chelmsford. 



Birds Poisoning their Young.— I was not a 

 little surprised on reading W. L. S.'s communication 

 upon this subject. It is a recognized or received fact 

 down here that the Starling does so ; but when I first 

 heard the remark, I paid no heed to it, and treated it 

 as a popular error ; but another and yet another testi- 

 mony seems to make one pause m deciding this 

 point. Several years ago, my neighbour, David 

 Davies, our village tailor, took a nest of young un- 

 fledged starlings, and huug it up in a cage by the 

 window, where he could observe them while occu- 

 pied at his calling. The old birds came to feed them 

 regularly, until such time as they were just ready 

 to fly, when all at once they died, but not for want 

 of feeding; and it is fully believed that the parent 

 birds bring some poisoning substance, preferring to 

 kill them thus outright, rather than see them pri- 

 soners for life— W. P., Llandderfel. 



Lesser Celandine.— Have any of the corres- 

 pondents of Science Gossip noticed that the Lesser 

 Celandine (Ranunculus Ficaria) is poisonous to 

 turkeys, as a friend in the country has informed me 

 that i"t is fatal to his ? The circumstance is not 

 mentioned by Withering, who says, in his note on 

 this plant : " The young leaves may be eaten in the 

 spring, along with other potherbs. Goats and sheep 

 eat it. Cows and horses refuse it. Curcuho dorsalis 

 is found upon it."— Vincent A. Smith. 



Poison-Pangs of Spiders— In reply .to your 

 correspondent E. T. Scott, I beg to give it as my 

 firm belief, based on actual observation, that spiders 

 are possessed of a poison apparatus. If your cor- 

 respondent will carefully dissect one ot the larger 

 of our spiders, he will find at the back of the horny 

 fang a small bag, which communicates with an 

 orifice at the base of the fang by means ot a short 

 tube This I believe to be the poison-gland ; it is 

 also to be remarked that the under surface ot the 

 fang is grooved, doubtless to facilitate the trans- 

 mission of the poison oozing from the orifice at its 

 base. A fair drawing of the gland will be found in 

 Rymer Jones's work on the General Structure of 

 the Animal Kingdom, article " Arachnida."— T. G.F. 

 [An interesting communication on this subject, 

 with figures, will appear in our next.— Ed.] 



Common Dog-fish.— In reply to B. S., I beg to 

 say, that in visiting the Scilly Isles, a few summers 

 ago, I had the opportunity of seeing several Com- 

 mon Dog-fish brought on shore by the fishermen 

 in their nets. On inquiry into the habits of the 

 fish I was assured that the young fish continually 

 take refuge in the stomach of the parent on the ap- 

 proach of danger, and have been seen issuing again 

 from its mouth.— Frances F. Statham. 



