HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



ii 



flocks of exactly twelve — never either more or less. 

 "Whether such a little company consists of an equal 

 number of males and females does not seem to be 

 known. But in the nesting season they all build in 

 the same tree, and all feed the nestlings promiscu- 

 ously. How the number of such a flock is always 

 adjusted is one of the unsolved questions presented 

 of the economy of this bird. It is something like a 

 blackbird in appearance, but of a rustier colour. 



The Shepherd's Companion is a curious little 

 bird, which much resembles a wag-tail in its habits. 

 Early in the morning and late at night it is seen 

 flitting and bobbing about the shepherd's hut, or the 

 miner's camp, and is, I believe, never molested. 



The Native Companion is a wader, with the 

 usual make and habits of its order. Unlike the 

 shepherd's companion, it is exceedingly shy, and can 

 -only be watched if great care is taken, and complete 

 silence observed. Sometimes a group of them — 

 perhaps as many as a dozen — may be seen assembled 

 in a circle, bowing to each other with the utmost 

 ^gravity, and wheeling about as if going through some 

 ■quaint, old-fashioned dance. This bird has occasion- 

 ally been kept in a state of tameness, but it is utterly 

 inadmissible where there are children. It is apt to 

 make a sudden dart with its long beak at any shining 

 object, and has in this manner been repeatedly 

 known to peck out a child's eye. 



J. W. Slater. 



JOTTINGS CONCERNING CERTAIN FRUIT 

 TREES. 



By Mary B. Morris. 



Part IV. — The Mulberry Tree. 



THE most commonly cultivated species of this 

 tree, that known to botanists as Morns nigra, 

 is reputed to be a native of Persia, and is apparently 

 indigenous throughout an extensive range of country. 



Several other species have from time to time been 

 cultivated and are still to be found in various 

 localities, but the one above mentioned is that which, 

 from its being considered the most useful, and at the 

 same time the kind which has become best accli- 

 matised in our country, is to us the most familiar. 



The mulberry is a tree which has very distinct 

 characteristic habits of its own, on account of some of 

 which it has even been credited with great discern- 

 ment. Hence, we find that some old writers were 

 wont to call it the " wisest tree," grounding this 

 attribute on the fact of the late period at which it 

 begins to show signs of life in spring. Thus Gerarde 

 sa y S : — " Of all the trees in the orchard, the mulberry 

 doth last bloom, and not before the cold weather in 

 May, at which time the silkworms do seem to revive, 

 as having then wherewith to feed and nourish 

 themselves," &c, &c. Pliny, too, considered it the 

 .safe harbinger of spring. " We will here," says he, 



"give another sign when the cold is gone : as soon 

 as ever you see the mulberry in bud, you have no 

 occasion to fear any injury from the rigour of the 

 weather ; " and Evelyn discoursing of this tree in his 

 " Sylva," writes : — " Lastly, let it not seem altogether 

 impertinent, if I add one premonition to those less 

 experienced gardeners, who frequently expose their 

 orange trees and like tender furniture trees of the 

 greenhouse too early : that the first leaves putting 

 forth of this wise tire, as Pliny calls it, is a more 

 infallible note when those delicate plants may be 

 safely brought out to the air, than any other 

 prognostic or indication." 



We see then that the tree was known in Italy in 

 Pliny's time, and in all probability it had then been 

 long cultivated, though there is some difficulty in 

 tracing its first arrival in Europe ; its introduction, 

 as we shall see later on, was, in all probability, of a 

 somewhat earlier date than that of the silkworm. 



In China, at a very remote age, the manufacture of 

 silk was practised, and there is no reason to believe 

 that it was carried on (at any rate, to any great 

 extent) from any other material than from the 

 produce of the silkworm fed upon mulberry leaves. 



In Persia, too, silk was made for many centuries 

 before the art was known in Europe ; and even long 

 after the raw material was brought to Greece, and 

 there by the women spun and woven, it was produced 

 in oriental countries only. The first Greek writer 

 who mentions the silkworm, appears to be Aristotle, 

 who states that the silk was spun in the island of Cos, 

 the silk having been brought from the east ; accord- 

 ing to Pliny, it came from Assyria, but he uses this 

 name in so very general a sense, that it often merely 

 points to some oriental country or another. 



In all probability silk was in use amongst the 

 Greeks long before they knew either whence it came 

 or how it was produced. Virgil supposed that the 

 silk was carded from the leaves of the mulberry tree, 

 and another writer of the Augustan age, Dionysius 

 Periegetes, also imagined it to be a vegetable 

 product, for writing of the "Seres" (the people 

 supposed to make the silk), some lines occur, which 

 are thus translated : 



" Nor flocks nor herds the distant Seres tend, 



But from the flowers that in the desert bloom, 

 Tinctured with every varying hue, they cull 

 The glossy down, and card it for the loom." 



For a long period, the Persians jealously preserved 

 a monopoly of the raw material, which was manu- 

 factured by the Phoenicians for the Romans, amongst 

 whom it appears to have been long in general use, 

 but up to the sixth century only by means of this 

 foreign supply. At length the secret of its production 

 became known through two Nestorian monks of 

 Persia, who had travelled in China, and who made 

 the Emperor Justinian acquainted with what they 

 had learned, and undertook to return to China and 

 bring back with them a supply of the eggs of the silk- 



