282 



HAHDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



place, to pick off every caterpillar as it appears and 

 destroy it, is the best means both of saving the 

 leaves and the fruit ; and as a preventive of 

 future mischief to paint the bark of the trees well 

 ■with a preparation of lime ; also at the end ot the 

 year dig out the soil round the root some six or 

 seven inches deep, and^put in a mixture of soot and 

 lime, with a good layer of freshly-prepared soil at 

 the top.— ^. Edicards. 



Abe El-vteks young.Eels?— This, I suppose, is 

 a question which would puzzle most lawyers, who, 

 probably, never heard of elvers in their lives; 

 but Mr. Frank Buckland has answered it. He was, 

 I believe, requested to appear before the Gloucester 

 magistrates in the case referred to by W. Mac- 

 millan in your August number, and gave them the 

 benefit of his knowledge of the subject ; and he 

 proved, to the entire satisfaction of the magis- 

 trates and all reasonable persons, that elvers are 

 young eels. The case was fully reported at the 

 time— end of May or early in June— in the Standard, 

 and is extremely interesting. — M. A. Livett. 



Lobsters.— I believe it is perfectly true that 

 lobsters occasionally utter screams. When we 

 were staving on the Yorkshire coast some time 

 since, our landlady told me that once when she was 

 going to boil a large lobster, as soon as she put it 

 in the hot water " it screamed like a baby," and 

 jumped out of the pan on to the kitchen floor. 

 Another time, she said, a lobster caught hold of 

 the edge of the table, and she had to get her hus- 

 band to remove it. My informant had lived near 

 the sea all her life, and was not at all given to 

 exaggeration. — A. B., Ealing. 



The Name "Tray" as applied to Dogs.— 

 What canine peculiarity or habit could have origi- 

 nated the frequent giving of this not remarkably 

 melodious name to house-dogs in the last century ? 

 I don't think it is at all in use now ; but so common 

 was it at one time to call dogs "Tray," that in 

 several authors the word will be found to be 

 employed as synonymous with " dog." Perhaps no 

 other name, excepting " Dash," was ever so general, 

 and yet its significance does not appear at first. I 

 do not suppose the M'ord represents the Prench 

 trait ; and if then we take it for granted that some- 

 how the tray, a familiar article in household ar- 

 rangements, got to be associated with the dog, it 

 must have been either because dogs were employed, 

 under certain circumstances, to guard a tray of pro- 

 visions, or because appetite woukl naturally lead a 

 dog to be on the watch for scraps when the tray 

 was brought in. Unless, indeed, it can be shown 

 that " Tray " was a corruption of some other word 

 when so used as an appellation. — J. R. S. C. 



SciRPUS MARiTiMUs, &c.— In a recent number 

 of Science-Gossip, "J. W." inquires about some 

 Thames-side plants, which inquiries 1 can perhaps 

 answer. The confusion he complains of is occa- 

 sioned by certain errors in the " Plora of Surrey" 

 (p. 258), which I had previously noted myself for 

 correction at some future time. According to this 

 work, Scirpus maritimuH is extremely rare, since it 

 only gives one station for it, and that where it was 

 only a casual, whilst on the authority of the editor, 

 S. triqueter is "plentiful by the Thames about 

 Putney." The fact appe;irs to be that /S'. maritimus 

 is very common from Wandsworth upwards ; I 

 have seen it as far as the Church-ferry al Isleworth, 

 whilst S. triqueter is fouud far more sparingly. 1 



have only seen two patches of it in the parts I have 

 searched. The readiest mode to distinguish the 

 three Scirpi, which are generally met with near 

 Putney, is as follows :— In S. triqueter the few 'pale 

 sessile spikelets are inserted near the top of the 

 light green triangular stem, which has its angles 

 produced almost as if winged ; S. maritimus has, it 

 is true, acute angles, but which angles are not what 

 I have called produced, whilst the dark green stem, 

 with its many leaf-like bracts and chocolate-coloured 

 spikelets, renders it very distinct in appearance from 

 the foregoing ; S. cariiiatus, abundant opposite the 

 " Crab-tree," and may be distinguished from ^S". 

 lacustris (which it closely resembles) by its bluntly 

 three-angled stem and uin-ight bract beneath the 

 panicle (Sm. E. PL, i. 60). If "T. W." still has 

 any difficulty, I shall be happy to show him my 

 specimens from this locality. — B. D. Jackson, 30, 

 Stockwell-road, S.W. 



Viper-bite. — I for one having taken part in the 

 "discussion," am much interested by the account 

 quoted by W. MacMillan, and glad to find that it 

 was recorded in the Dorset newspaper, where, doubt- 

 less, it must have met the eye of some gentlemen, 

 who contradicted my assertion in Science- 

 Gossip, a few years ago, that the bite of a viper 

 was very poisonous, and had in some cases proved 

 fatal, i have within the last few years heard of 

 other cases— more recent ones— where the bite has 

 caused death, and I narrowly escaped a bite last 

 summer from a very fine specimen. My sou had been 

 out with other boys " snaknig " and brought home 

 a reptile in a large, wide-necked bottle ; the weather 

 was cold, and the creature seemed quite harmless. 

 I handled it, so did he, and we returned it to its 

 glass cage, having put some plucked grass in with 

 it. Towards evening on the following day the 

 snake seemed to wake up ; the heat of the room 

 had cheered it, and on consulting Mr. Cooke's book 

 of " British Reptiles," we found that we had really, 

 not figuratively, been fostering a vi]}PA\— Helen E. 

 Tf'atne//. 



Names of Birds. — In Science-Gossip for 1873, 

 p. 143, you were good enough to publish a query 

 of mine respecting some southern sea-birds, of 

 which 1 could only, at that time, give a few exceed- 

 ingly imperfect descriptive notes. Since then I 

 have met with further memoranda on the subject, 

 and have had, moreover, an opportunity of identify- 

 ing all the birds inquired after, as follows : 1. Molly- 

 mawk {Diomedea melanophrys);^^ 2. Stinkpot _( Pro- 

 cellaria gigantea); t 3. Parson- bird {Procellaria c.on- 

 spicellafa);% 4. Ice-bird {Prion tiirtiis) ; § 5. Whale- 

 bird {Prion vittalus).\\ Like, all names given by 

 unscientific observers, however, these sailors' desig- 

 nations are very loosely applied, and furnish no 

 guide whatever to species. The birds called " white- 

 bellies " in the North Atlantic Ocean, which were 

 asked about at the same time, are guillemots, the 

 common guillemot, Uria trole. — H. G. 



Chaffinch and Missel-Thrush. — Can any of 

 your readers inform me if the Chaffinch, Piedfinch, 

 Pink, as it is sometimes called, is to be found 

 wherever the nest of the Missel-thrush is located ? 

 "As in many parts of Prance it is a general belief 

 amongst the jieasants and bird-nesting urchins, 

 that no nest of the Missel-thrush is ever found 



* Gould, " Birds of Australia," vol. vii. Pi. 43. 

 t Ibid. PI. 45. t Ibid. PL 46. 



§ Ibid. PL 54. U Ibid. PL 55. 



