IQO 



HA RD WICKE 'S S CIENCE- G SSI P. 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



Pied Lapwing. — Your correspondent, G. Bristow, 

 asks whether any cases ofpied lapwings have been noted 

 other than the one he mentions. I am able to give 

 the following four instances of tliis strange occurrence, 

 (i) In the "Zoologist," October, iSSi, a Dublin cor- 

 respondent inserted a note mentioning a white-heron 

 swallow and lapwing which had been shot. (2) 

 The editor of the "Zoologist" (J. E. Harting) 

 appended the following note to the above : " If these 

 varieties had been secured alive and kept in confine- 

 ment they would in all prol)ability have assumed their 

 colours on moulting. Such at least has been the case 

 with a cream-coloured lapwing which has been for 

 some time in the Western Aviary at the Zoological 

 Gardens, Regent's Park, and we have known the same 

 thing to occur in the case of a pied blackbird." (3) 

 On October 20, 1881, I examined a lapwing in the 

 shop of the late Mr. Young, bird-stuffer, York, which 

 was so curiously pied and streaked with white that it 

 looked almost as if it had l)een dipped into white- 

 wash. (4) In the "Natural History Journal" (Feb. 

 1883) a lapwing is mentioned having the head cream- 

 coloured and a light band across the breast, this was 

 exhibited for sale in a poulterer's shop in York on 

 Jan. 29, 1883. I am not aware of any other instances 

 having occurred, although I do not doubt that many 

 such have passed unrecorded in the pages of any 

 scientific journal. I shall be obliged to Mr. Bristow 

 if he will kindly let me know the locality and the date 

 on which his specimen was procured. As I am col- 

 lecting all the instances of pied and albino birds, &c. 

 which I can hear of, I shall be extremely obliged to 

 any one who may be able to send me notes on this 

 very interesting subject. (See SciENCE-GossiP, vol. 

 xix. p. 117). — Edward y. Gibbins, Neath, Glamo7-ga7i- 

 shirc. 



Wild Flowers in Bloom, January 1S84, in 

 West Norfolk. — It seems to my limited knowledge 

 of botany a list of plants of this description cannot 

 fail to have some interest. On January 1st, in a 

 .short walk from Castleacre, I gathered Raiiiuicuhis 

 biclbosiis, Caltha pahistris, CapscUa biirsa-pastoris, 

 Sisymhriiini officinale, Viola odorata, V. tricolor, 

 Areitaria, sp. ? Veronica agrcstis, EitpJiorbia Hclio- 

 scopia, Lamiiim album, L, ptirpiirejun. Salvia 

 verbcnaca, Urtica ureiis, Bcllis percnnis, Senccio 

 Jacobiea and vulgaris, Chcerophyllum sylvestris, 

 Leontodoti taraxacum, Picris vireiis ? Poa annua, 

 Dactylis glomerata. Until the 7th I had little or no 

 time to work among plants, but on that date I found 

 Cardmts lanceolatits, Ulex Enropiciis, and Hieracinm 

 pilosella. Next day, in another direction from that 

 before taken, I gathered Brassica oleracca. Ranun- 

 culus rcptans, Corybts avellana, and Priiniila vulgaris, 

 and on the nth added I'inca minor and Veronica 

 chamccdrys to my list. Till the 15th I found nothing 

 new, but on that day I noticed the alder in full flower 

 as well as chickweed. Next day I found Chciranthus 

 cheiri ^Xi^ Daphne laureola, and on the i8th added 

 my best find, Helleborus fcetidus. — J. Uaii'ey Bloom, 

 IVestbitry House School, Worthing. 



Paris quadrifolia. — Last summer I found a 

 large patch of the above in a wood in this neighbour- 

 hood ; many of the plants had five leaves below the 

 flower instead of four, and one had six. Is not this 

 last unusual ? — A". D., Co/ton. 



L. pereger, var. picta. — Perhaps some readers 

 can inform me whether L. pereger var. picta is 

 common throughout the British Isles or otherwise, as 

 ^Ir. Rimmer in his "Land and Fresh Water Shells " 



only mentions one locality, viz. Ulva Island in the- 

 Hebrides. I have found it on the east coast, but 

 not common. I have also submitted specimens to 

 parties well able to be sure of the variety. — IVm. 

 Duncan. 



CoRONULA DIADEMA. — I have noticed in a late 

 specimen of Coromila diade/na (from the Tay whale) 

 that the enlargement of the shell appears to me to 

 have been by lines of growth at both the apex and 

 base. I shall be pleased to learn whether my surmise 

 is correct or not. — lV?n. Du-ncan. 



Climbing Mice. — Those in Texas have many 

 opportunities of noticing the "climbing power" of 

 mice. The mouse which comes into houses here is 

 very like the English dormouse.. It has large ears 

 and very large eyes, and is a pretty creature, but very 

 mischievous. The houses here are lined with a thin 

 calico called "domestic," and the mice run up and 

 down the walls as nimbly as they run over the floor. 

 On one corner of the ceiling of my bedroom, I 

 noticed that the domestic had a hole in it. Looking 

 through it I could see creatures moving at the other 

 side, and soon found they were large red wasps, 

 which had suspended a nest from the rafter just over 

 the hole. Said hole was not their work, it was 

 done by the mice, which made nightly raids upon the 

 nest, eating the under part where the young wasps 

 were stored away in their sealed up cells. I thought 

 the matter over with "a house-that-Jack-built" 

 feeling. The wasps have built a house, and they are a 

 nuisance. The mice come to eat the wasps, but they 

 are a nuisance. The cat comes to the mice, but 

 the cat is a nuisance, because there are fleas on the 

 cat, and fleas are a nuisance. How am I to get rid 

 of all these nuisances ? No other way than to take 

 the nest. So when the wasps were asleep, I made 

 the attack. They fell into a tin of water, and their 

 beautiful paper house came to the ground. But I 

 ought to be talking of mice. The climbing propen- 

 sity makes these little depredators doubly dangerous, 

 for nothing can be protected from them. They 

 get into any box not lined with metal, gnaw the 

 clothes or papers into little pills, in the centre of 

 which they repose until disturbed. A mouse about 

 to begin life ran up the wall of my room, ate the 

 shoulder out of a new cloth overcoat hanging up in a 

 recess, and with the fluffy wool made a snug little 

 nest in a box below, where he and his nest met the 

 doom they deserved. As the mice run up the outside 

 walls and posts of the house as easily as the inside, 

 it is not the domestic that assists them. I fancy 

 English house mice are climbers too. — Mrs. C, Brent, 

 Kerrville, Iverr County, U.S. America. 



The Dormouse in England. — When a small 

 boy, I frequently had dormice given me. These 

 were obtained from Freshford Wood, near here, and 

 close to a village of that name ; and also from a 

 wood at Eastcott, near Devizes. Sometimes I have 

 had a mother and two or three young given me. 

 Though every care was taken, they seldom lived long 

 in confinement. I am informed that dormice are still 

 frequently met with, not only in the above-named 

 woods, but also in various places near this city. — 

 Charles F. JV. T. Williams, Bath. 



Helix Pisana. — I can fully corroborate Mr, 

 McKeans statement as to the vitality of the above, 

 after a prolonged period of hibernation. On 

 September 5th of last year, I received from a friend 

 in South Wales, a number of H. pisana taken at 

 Tenby. I placed a few of them in . a vivarium, 

 together with a number of other species of Helix. 



