5° 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP, 



tion, in regular and consecutive swathes, and leaving 

 behind the marks of progress. A graphic passage in 

 Woodward's " Mollusca,"' evidently written from 

 direct observation, may be cited. "The upper lip 

 with its mandible is raised, the lower lip expands ; 

 the tongue is protruded, and applied to the surface 

 for an instant, and then withdrawn ; its teeth glitter 

 like glass-paper, and in the pond snail it is so flexible 

 that frequently it will catch against projecting points, 

 and be drawn out of the shape slightly, as it vibrates 

 over the surface." 



In the limpet, the food is grasped by the lips, 

 drawn forward and retained by the prickly tongue, and 

 simultaneously pressed against the upper horny jaw, 

 by which means a portion is bitten off ; the detached 

 morsel is then pressed along the tongue, torn rasped 

 down in its progress, and forced onwards by peristaltic 

 motion ; thus the mass is made to enter the gullet. 



The gasteropods are not entirely vegetable feeders. 

 The popular whelk and snail will eat flesh of all 

 kinds, and the slug has been observed browsing on 

 an individual of its own species, accidentally crushed 

 and scarcely dead, and they feed eagerly on earth- 

 worms. Of the aquatic tribes, as may be seen in 

 aquaria, the food of the Limnei is frequently animal 

 matter, which makes them deserve the name of 

 " scavengers of the v/aters." In the absence of other 

 nourishment they will even devour each other. 



The tongues, or palates, form beautiful microscopic 

 objects, not very difficult to procure or prepare, 

 and they may be arranged to meet all conditions of 

 illumination (for the purpose of the drawing the 

 paraboloid was used), but as an opaque object, with 

 reflected light, structure and colour are seen to 

 equal advantage ; in balsam, with polarised light, the 

 most gorgeous effects may be produced. 



Erratum. — In No. i of this series, the title of the 

 Plate and paper should have been Tiiigis crassicornis. 

 Crouch End. ' 



NEW EVIDENCES OF PRIxMEVAL MAN. 



A WEEK or two ago, wlien lecturing to the 

 Hitchin Natural History Society, I took advan- 

 tage of the opportunity to visit the remarkable brick- 

 pits in the neighbourhood. I had paid one of them a 

 hasty visit about three years before, when palaeolithic 

 flint implements were first found there ; and on this 

 later occasion I had the privilege of being accompanied 

 by Mr. William Hill, the President of the Society, 

 who pointed out all the details of the surface deposits. 

 The latter are exceedingly interesting, and the im- 

 plements are found under conditions quite different to 

 any I have heard of before. In this county Paleo- 

 lithic weapons have been met with chiefly, if not 

 only, in valley gravels, and in such ancient cave 

 breccias as those of Kent's Hole, Torquay. 



In the neighbourhood of Hitchin, however, they 

 are found in deposits of quite another character. 

 One of the best places for them is an extensive pit 

 worked for the brick-earth. The deposit here was 

 evidently formed on the bottoms of small lakes, for 

 about six feet of the lower beds at one end of a pit 

 I visited are of a rich cream colour, and full of the 

 remains of Bithynia and other fresh-water shells. 

 Indeed it is a kind of fresh-water marl, formed 

 chiefly by their partial decomposition. The upper 

 beds are of a darker colour, and appear to me to 

 have been more arenaceous, so that the surface water 

 has percolated through them, and dissolved and 

 carried away the lime, leaving them of a different 

 colour to the unaltered beds beneath. At the other 

 end of the pit is quite a different deposit, more or 

 less stratified, and lying at an angle of about twenty 

 degrees. It is a mass of rubbish, and has quite a 

 morainic appearance. 



It appeared to me that into one end of this lake 

 a small glacier must have found its way, and there 

 deposited this rubbly material, whilst in the stiller 

 parts the mollusca lived and died, and their shells 

 accumulated to form the marl. The country round 

 about is of such a physical character as would easily 

 allow of these conditions taking place at the close of 

 the Glacial Period. The original surface must have 

 been very undulating, so that the drainage would 

 flow into the hollows. INIasses of boulder-clay occur 

 here and there in the neighbourhood of the marl-pits 

 at a higher level, but they are of more ancient date. 



The flint implements appear to be tolerably nu- 

 merous, and all of them are beautifully chipped and 

 worked. I looked over a number of them in the 

 cabinets of local collectors, and was particularly 

 pleased with those I saw in the collections of Messrs. 

 Hill and Ransom. In another pit (where I saw no 

 traces of freshwater marl, though this maybe because 

 it is worked at a higher level, and has not been 

 carried so low down), not only are numerous palaeo- 

 lithic weapons found, but abundance of chips and 

 splinters, and even hand-hammers formed of flint 

 nodules, all of which bear plain evidence on their 

 surfaces of having been used to detach the flakes. 



The discovery of these implements under these 

 interesting conditions, was due, in the first instance, 

 I believe, to one of the workmen in the brick-pits, 

 who was reading an article in the " Leisure Hour" 

 about Primitive Man, in which some of the flint 

 implements were figured. He immediately recog- 

 nised them, and actually had one in his possession at 

 the time, for he api^ears to have been of an observing 

 and collecting turn of mind. He soon found others 

 after that, and now they are turning up every week. 



The discovery of palaeolithic implements in fresh- 

 water deposits which bear evidences of glacial condi- 

 tions is a novel addition to our knowledge of the 

 subject. 



J. E. Taylor. 



