HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



S7 



own custom has been to clear off the superfluous 

 balsam, while still soft, with a piece of flannel 

 clipped in turpentine, when the slide, if properly 

 done, would bear any amount of rubbing. Precau- 

 tion should be taken to dry up any atmospheric 

 moisture from the cover before putting it to its 

 place with the forceps.— E. H. 



It is our melancholy duty to record the 

 death, at the comparatively early age of fifty- 

 two, of Robert Hardwicke, Esq., F.L.S., the 

 founder and publisher of this journal. In him 

 we have lost a tried friend and an intimate 

 companion. Everyone who knew him esteemed 

 him for his rare qualities, his sterling honesty, 

 his manly outspokennesss, and his tender sym- 

 pathies for all that was good and true, as well as 

 for anybody in want or distress. Those who 

 knew him best, loved him most ; and he has left 

 behind him a memory that will not only be 

 "ever-green" in the hearts of his friends, but 

 which will become mellower as the years 

 glide by ! For the last twenty or thirty years 

 Robert Hardwicke has made himself pro- 

 minent by the interest he has taken in promot- 

 ingpopular scientificliterature. Apart from his 

 own love of it, and even more, for the society 

 of scientific men with whom it brought him 

 into contact, he could see the time was not 

 far off when natural science would take that 

 place in a good education which every one is 

 now preparing for it. Hence his name stands 

 on the title-pages of some of the best as well as 

 the cheapest popular scientific works which 

 have been issued for many years. Eor this 

 journal he had, we might almost say, an espe- 

 cial fondness. It was his own child— the pet of 

 his literary fancy, and he has spared no pains, 

 expense, or time, during the ten years of its 

 existence, to procure for it the wide circula- 

 tion it now enjoys. His name is associated 

 with that of Science-Gossip as intimately as 

 it can be, and we feel certain that our readers 

 will join with us in the hope that it may long 

 be continued, as a fitting memorial of the 

 founder's energy and talents. Mr. Hard- 

 wicke was struck with paralysis— that insidi- 

 ous foe of strong men, — and never recovered. 

 He died on Monday, March 8 th, and was buried 

 at Brompton Cemetery, amid a large circle of 

 sorrowing friends, on Friday, March 12th. 





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ZOOLOGY. 



The Wild Birds Act— If C. F. would look 

 through the schedule of the Bird Act, he would find 

 that some of the birds, for the shooting of which he 

 wishes to levy a fine, are included in the Bird Act, 

 and he has only to inform against any one shooting 

 a spoonbill or a kingfisher between the 15th of 

 March and the 1st of August to make him pay, 

 for the first offence, the costs, which by judicious 

 management he can make considerable, and for the 

 second and other offences a fine not exceeding five 

 shillings, including the costs. The chough, another 

 of C. F.'s favourites, is in the Sea-Bird Act, and, in 

 consequence of the protection afforded by that Act, 

 is, I know, considerably increasing its numbers in 

 North Devon, and is probably doing the same in 

 other counties in which it is resident. As to some 

 of the birds mentioned by C. F— the hoopoe, roller, 

 oriole, and bee-eater— they do not seem ever to 

 have visited this country in greater numbers than at 

 present. Bewick, Montagu, and other old writers 

 do not mention them as anything but occasional 

 visitants ; indeed, the country lies too much to the 

 westward of their usual line of migration for them 

 to be anything else. No amount of fines or acts of 

 parliament would induce them to alter their natural 

 course. Perhaps it is lucky that some of C. F.'s 

 friends are only occasional visitors, and not very 

 numerous, or we should soon have an outcry from 

 our keepers of bees and gardeners, which latter are 

 not very well pleased with the present Wild Bird 

 Act, mild and imperfect as it is.— C. S. 



A Rare Bird.— A very fine, specimen of the 

 Cock of the Rock {Rubicolee crocea) has just been 

 added to the Zoological Society's collection in the 

 Pwegent's Park. 



The Kangaroos.— At a recent meeting of the 

 Zoological Society, Professor A. H. Garrod read a 

 paper on the kangaroo, called Halmaturus luctuosus 

 by D'Albertis, and on its affinities, in which such 

 points in the anatomy of the type-specimen were 

 described as served to explain its systematic posi- 

 tion. It was shown from the form of the premolar 

 and molar teeth, from the nature of the fur and 

 from other minor details, that this species must be 

 placed in the same genus as the Borcopsis Brunn 

 (Miiller), named more correctly B. Mueller i 

 (Schlegel). The species, therefore, should stand 

 as Borcopsis luctuosa, being the only other known 

 species of the genus. It was also shown that 

 Borcopsis together with Bendrolagus form a well- 

 marked independent group of the Macropoid 

 Marsupialia. 



How to Preserve Spiders.— In answer to the 

 query by " S. H." in the March number of Science- 

 Gossip,— a spider is preserved in the same manner 



