HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



1^5 



showing a section of the common lichen {Physcia 

 stellaris) through a mature apothecium, plainly reveals 

 both brown spores and green gonidia. It is a very 

 striking object, and of great value to the botanical 

 student. 



Mr. Cole's " Studies."— No. 15 of the "Studies 

 in Microscopical Science " deals with Adipose tissue, 

 its nature and method of preparation. The beautiful 

 coloured illustration shows a portion of such tissue 

 magnified 250. No. 7 of the " Popular Microscopical 

 Studies " is a well-written and condensed essay on 

 "The Common Bulrush," accompanied by an exqui- 

 sitely-coloured plate showing the transverse section 

 of the stem of this plant X 75, double stained. Both 

 the above papers were accompanied by slides of the 

 objects treated upon, mounted in Mr. Cole's charac- 

 teristically neat and artistic manner. 



ZOOLOGY. 



Hyalina Drapalnaldi, D)'ap.— ln one of the 

 back numbers of Science-Gossip a paper was 

 written about a Zonites (?), found near Clifton. It was 

 stated that beyond a question the shell is really 

 Hyalina Drapabiahii, Drap., of the European Con- 

 tinent. During the last twelve months I have been 

 keeping some of these shells in captivity. During 

 the summer I found it easy to feed them and they 

 rapidly grew and increased in number, eating what 

 my other family of snails rejected, or feeding voraci- 

 ously on any dead snail in their house. The winter 

 treatment at first perplexed me, as I found they 

 would not hybernate like my Helicidje, but remained 

 wide awake and hungry also. I had read that all 

 Zonites are fond of old meat bones. I tried, but my 

 Hyalinas would have nothing to do with bones. One 

 of my sisters then suggested carefully chopped raw 

 meat — beef and mutton — which proved most success- 

 ful. As soon as the meat is put into their house, a 

 little crowd crawls forth from the moss, &c., and, in 

 the course of a few hours, demolishes the supply. My 

 Hyalinas are now fat and flourishing, and my colony 

 promises to be greatly enlarged. I find them already 

 laying large clusters of eggs. — F. AT. Hdc, Bristol. 



Shrimps in Aquaria. — Shrimps and gobies, and 

 such creatures as spend their days for the most part 

 at the bottom of the water, require special arrange- 

 ments to keep them successfully for any length of 

 time. They succeed exceedingly well in a broad 

 shallow tank, or even a large baking dish with the 

 bottom covered about two inches deep with sea sand. 

 In these I have kept them in good health for a year 

 or more, whereas I have found they very scon perish 

 if kept in a deep tank or vase. I had one shrimp in 

 particular which lived fourteen months in a large 

 baking dish half-filled with sand, and covered by 



scarcely an inch of water. In this it grew from little 

 more than half an inch in length (its size when I first 

 had it) to something over three inches. It was very 

 tame and familiar, and would readily take tiny 

 morsels of meat off a quill with its claws, and this 

 with a very pretty deliberateness. It would then 

 scoop itself out a hollow in the sand and settle down 

 into it, and there it would remain motionless, but for 

 an occasional sweeping round of its long antennre, for 

 hours together while it ate and digested its food. It 

 and its brother and sister shrimps were always restless 

 however at night, and a candle taken to the aquarium 

 after dark would disclose them silently moving about. 

 Some persons may however object to keeping shrimps 

 and gobies in a tank so shallow that it can only be 

 looked at from above. I usually have a dark 

 chamber in my tank, recommended by Mr. Lloyd in 

 his pamphlet on Aquaria and Aquaria Management. 

 In an aquarium made on this principle I have had 

 the water unchanged for years, and it is still as good 

 as ever and full of living creatures. It is however 

 fair to say that I have also a vase with no dark 

 chamber containing anemones, whicli, with the water 

 they are living in, I procured at Brighton in the 

 summer of 1876. So it does not seem to be absolutely 

 essential, and the arrangement shown above econo- 

 mises the water — a great object to those that live 

 inland.— ^/i^tv-^ Waters, B.A., Cambridge. 



Conchological Notes. — A few days ago I 

 visited Hammersmith, and found Clausilia biplicata 

 fairly common on a bank near the Thames, living at 

 the roots of Urtica dioica, Lamiiiui album, and Nepeta 

 gleclionta. I found six or seven full-grown living 

 specimens, and young shells appear to be com- 

 mon. In company with C. biplicata I found Helix 

 horteiisis, and its variety Intea, Helix rnfescens and 

 var. alba (the var. alba being about as common as 

 the type), Li max agrestis, &c. On March 30 I 

 visited Kew Gardens, and found Planorbis carinatus, 

 P. Cornells, P. vortex, Limncca palustris, L. peregra 

 (and a monstrosity having a wide umbilicus), L. 

 stagnalis, and Bythinia tentaculata in one of the 

 tanks. I also found Zonites crystallinus, Carychium 

 minimum. Achat iiia acicula. Helix pulchella, H. 

 rnfescens, Neritina Jlnviatilis, &c., in the rejectamenta 

 of the Thames. I have on two occasions (once at the 

 Reculvers in Kent, and once at Hendon in Middlesex) 

 found Helix rotundata living in an ants' nest. 

 Although this species has no garlic odour, the ants 

 do not appear to molest them. Mr. Hudson's 

 remarks on Splucrium cornemn are very interesting. 

 Tliere is a ditch at Bickley, in Kent, which contains 

 Pisidium piisillum. This ditch is often dried up 

 for weeks during the hotter months of the year, 

 yet the little bivalves always appear in large 

 numbers when the ditch begins to be filled with 

 water. In my description of a variety of Helix 

 aspersa, on page 91, I forgot to mention that in 



