190 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



my manuscript was not perhaps so clear as I could 

 Lave wished :—PaG;e 156, col. 2, line 7, for "letter- 

 ing" read "letter M"; page 158, col. l.line 8, omit 

 the word "of," inserting a comma after "centre" ; 

 page 158, col. 1, line 19, for "sets" read "setse" ; 

 page 159, col. 1, line 23, insert the word "to" after 

 "above"; page 159, col. 1, line 25, for "miscella- 

 neous" read "membranous"; 'page 159, col. 2, 

 line 2, for "element" read " aliment."— A. Ham- 

 mond. 



Lobsters.— A few days ago my wife having a 

 couple of live lobsters, consulted a cookery book as 

 to their management, and was somewhat perplexed 

 at reading of the "frightful screams" these animals 

 arc said to give when plunged into boiling water, 

 and the details of the manner of putting them into 

 the pot in order to avoid such a very painful death. 

 Can you or any of your readers tell me if these 

 animals are capable of "screaming " ? I was deputed 

 to plunge them in boiling water, which I did, /lead 

 foremost, and they certainly did not scream, although, 

 much to my surprise, they scampered about in the 

 pot for one or two seconds after complete immer- 

 sion. — R. Nelson, R.N., Botley. 



Worm-bait Anglers.— In some parts of Merio- 

 nethshire anglers are catching trout in abundance 

 with worm- baits, on clear and dry days, in shallow 

 and clear waters, when other competent anglers are 

 unable to do so with the same baits. It is the 

 general belief about here that such persons use a 

 kind of liquid to dip their baits in. I should be very 

 much obliged to any of Science- Gossip's readers 

 who would be so good as to inform me whether such 

 liquid is used, and if so, what it is called and com- 

 posed of. — /. R. 



The late Rev. C. A. Johns. — Every reader of 

 Science-Gossip will regret to hear that the Eev. 

 C. A. Johns, author of "Botanical Jlambles," 

 " British Birds in their Haunts," "A Week at the 

 Lizard," &c., died on June 28th at his residence, 

 Winton House, Winchester. Not only his friends 

 and relations, but every reader of his charmingly 

 written books, will regret his loss. 



Atriplex halimus. — The other day I met with 

 the shrub {A. halimus?) growing profusely at 

 AVeston-super-Mare, on an embankment on the rise 

 of the hill, near the pier. Worlebury Hill is com- 

 posed of carboniferous limestone, and the Atriplex 

 grows a fair height, besides being thick and bushy, 

 and the foliage is quite unaffected by the strong sea 

 breezes generally prevailing at AVeston. I do not 

 think it has been planted there many years. The 

 leaves ai'e somewhat sinuate and triangular, and 

 have a frosted appearance. The shrub may perhaps 

 be A. hortensis, if the latter is] not a synonym ? — ■ 

 Lily Orey. 



The Starling. — In an article on the Starling in 

 this month's issue of your journal it is stated that 

 this is not a migratory bird. Beference to three 

 hooks containing descriptions of the Starling, viz.. 

 Parley's "Tales about Animals," Stanuard's "Com- 

 mon Birds," and Waterton's "Essays on Natural 

 History," has shown me that this statement maybe 

 generally believed, for the migratory habit is not 

 mentioned in any of them ; hence my desire to esta- 

 blish it. In West Cornwall, my birth-place and 

 residence for nearly twenty-live years, this bird is 

 never seen in the summer, but it and the Picldfare 

 and Bedwing come there in vast flocks in the winter. 



During about'a year's residence at Bath, when in my 

 thirteenth year, I was surprised to see the Starling 

 building its ;nest under the school-house roof, my 

 youthful imagination having conceived its breeding- 

 place to be in some more remote region, along with 

 the Snipe, Woodcock, Fieldfare, and Redwing. At 

 Bath the migratory habit of the Starling was well 

 known to the school-boys ; when these birds 

 assembled iu large flocks previously to their departure 

 the boys from Cornwall would loudly express their 

 wish that they too could fly home iu company with 

 them. A marked decrease iu the number of these 

 birds in the neighbourhood of the school invariably 

 followed these vast assemblages. The Starling 

 also breeds here in Lincolnshire, but I do not notice 

 any decrease in their numbers in the winter, similar 

 to that observed in Somersetshire. Difference in 

 size and beauty of starlings in full winter plumage 

 was accounted for by school-boys by difference in 

 age and sex, but Mr. H. H. Kew, an intelligent 

 naturalist of this town, has shown me two stuffed ^^ 

 specimens, which he names the " tree " and "house " 

 starling respectively. The former is larger and has 

 more beautiful plumage than the latter. Some star- 

 lings which built in some trees near the Hampstead- 

 road, London, in tthe year 1858, appeared larger 

 than those which build in my house here, and per- 

 haps some of your readers may afiirm the reality of 

 the varieties named by Mr. Kew. I have often ob- 

 served the trouble parent starlings take in carrying 

 their young ones' excrement in their beaks to a con- 

 siderable distance from the nest, e. g., thirty or 

 forty yards, instead of dropping it immediately 

 below. Query : — Is their object to prevent passers 

 by from having their attention directed to the situa- 

 tion of their progeny? — Palemon Best, M.B. {Lond.). 



The_ Colours of Flowers— As an artist, and 

 being in the habit of making life-sized studies of 

 flowers, I must beg leave to differ with " W. C. S." 

 in the Floral Magazine, as quoted in Science- 

 Gossip for June. In the tirst place I think the 

 colours at the disposal of an artist are not in any 

 way inferior iu brilliancy to those of flowers ; they 

 are the same as used in dyeing, and the hue of a 

 new scarlet soldier's coat is more brilliant than that 

 of a geranium or poppy, although not transparent. 

 The real difiiculty that arises is loss of brilliancy 

 from want of gradation and quality ; colours also, 

 as every artist knows, gain much from contrast, and 

 the fact of many coloured illustrations being on 

 white background, and not over carefully coloured, 

 combine to make them look poor. With respect to 

 greens, it is an instructive thing to place a vivid bit 

 of green in a bright green landscape, the stand of a 

 toy-horse, for instance, on a green lawn, and the 

 result will be to show how very little true green 

 there is in the landscape, most of the shades looking 

 grayish and indescribable by contrast. Of course 

 really metallic lustre combined with vivid colour", as 

 iu the Adonis blue butterfly, foreign Buprestidfe, or 

 Kingfisher, is not able to be fully represented by the 

 limited light at the disposal of an artist, as their 

 colour is enhanced by the refracted \\g\\i.— Harry 

 Leslie. 



The Water Avens {Geum rivale). — This plant 

 grows plentifully on the Itchen, at Wood Mill ; and 

 on the Basingstoke Canal, iu Hampshire.— i/«;';*^ 

 Leslie. 



Indiscriminate Collecting. — The London 

 dealers have, I fear, something to do with the 

 destruction of our fauna. When I lived at Deal I 



