HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



215 



was a wryneck {Yunx torqidlld), one of our summer 

 visitants. Tlie only way I can account for it being 

 in so peculiar a situation is, that being an insectivoi-ous 

 bird, it was attracted by the flies which usually abound 

 inside lamps. This is the first time such a thing has 

 come under my notice, and I thought it might be 

 interesting to some of the readers of Science-Gossip. 

 — P. T. Deakin. 



Miscellaneous Notes. — Last year I described 

 several species of Chrysomela which I had not been 

 able to identify. I have now ascertained the names 

 of the British species, which are as follows : — C. 

 polita, C. staphyloca, C. hypcrici, and C. gceitingensis. 

 The foreign species I believe to be C. mentkrastri. 

 The lady-bird described by Mr. Moulton is a very 

 common one : I have often taken it myself in 

 company with the ordinary red form. In answer to 

 G. T. R., I may say that the dormouse {Afyoxiis 

 avellanaiius) is by no means uncommon in the 

 woods near Battle in Sussex, and is sometimes taken 

 in the hollows of trees. Mr. Elliot mentions the 

 occurrence of Arioii ater, var. bicolor, near Stroud, but 

 he gives us no description of it, nor do I remember 

 having ever seen it described in any British journal. 

 Vertigo t2tmida of Westerlund is included in the 

 Conchological Society's list of British shells. Can 

 any reader inform me where it has been found in 

 Britain ? As far as I can ascertain, it is confined 

 to Scandinavia. — T. D. A. Cockcrell. 



Hydrogen Gas generated, but not con- 

 sumed.— A clergyman, scientifically ignorant on the 

 subject, would feel greatly obliged by information 

 needed for a special object on which he is engaged. 

 It is assumed that about 150 millions of tons of coal 

 are now annually raised in the British Isles, and that 

 probably about the same quantity is supplied by all 

 the other coal-producing countries of the earth. It 

 is estimated that at least one-third of the coal used 

 for household fires and for the furnaces of factory and 

 other engines is unconsumed, through the thought- 

 lessness of servants, in loading the fires with too 

 much coal at one feeding ; so that the gases evolved 

 from such portion do not combine with the oxygen 

 of the air to produce combustion and heat, but 

 ascend through the chimney, and float in the sur- 

 rounding air perceptibly as smoke. If this be in any 

 degree the case, the inquirer is anxious to ascertain 

 what becomes of the immense volume of hydrogen 

 thus generated, being about 70 per cent, of the coal 

 elements ? Does the hydrogen, as the lightest of all 

 known elements, rise in the earth's atmosphere, 

 working its sinuous course upward, and forming a 

 stratum above the atmosphere, remaining superin- 

 cumbent upon it, and surrounding it, or does the 

 hydrogen combine with the atmosphere, at a low 

 level, and become in any way absorbed by other 

 substances, into contact with which it may be drawn, 

 or otherwise chemically united t—S. C. 



Does the Sparrow-Hawk attack Toads ? — A 

 short time ago, while driving to Needham Market, 

 I met a sparrow-hawk, flying exactly in the opposite 

 direction at a slow pace, as if heavily ballasted, and 

 about fifteen feet above my head. I stopped to 

 watch him ; he alighted in the middle of the road, 

 about sixty yards behind me, and began plucking at 

 some object which he had carried in his claws. As 

 he pulled no feathers, I drove back to find what he 

 had got, when he flew away, leaving behind him a 

 toad so knocked about that it did not attempt to 

 crawl. I had never before supposed that a hawk 

 would prey on toads. — Henry Ridley, Ipswich. 



Early Dragon and Lace Flies. — On Sunday, 

 May nth, I captured two specimens of A. minium , 

 both males. They were very weak, and appeared 

 as if they had just left the pupa case, their flight 

 being slow. I also captured at the same place a lace- 

 fly (H. pnla), on a piece of floating wood. The 

 vicinity was Penylam, and the time four in the 

 afternoon. The sun was very brilliant, the ther- 

 mometer registering 64 degrees. Is it not early for 

 them ? The water-beetle {G. natator) was very 

 abundant, as well as the larvre of the caddis fly, in 

 the pond I captured the dragon flies. — H. J. Wheeler, 

 ytin., Cardiff. 



Lady-bird. — Lady-birds with red spots on black 

 ground, though not nearly so common as the red 

 ones with black spots, cannot be called uncommon 

 in the neighbourhood of Birmingham, and are some- 

 times very beautiful. 



The Dormouse in England. — At Longbridge, 

 Northfield, seven miles from Birmingham, on the 

 Worcestershire side, I have twice seen the dor- 

 mouse within the last ten or twelve years ; the first 

 time in an ordinary country garden, running across a 

 lawn and disappearing under a wall thickly covered 

 with ivy. The soil is loam, and there are many 

 oak-trees about. The second specimen (or it may 

 have been the same individual some years older) was 

 brought in by the cat, who was very fond of the field- 

 vole, of which she caught many large specimens and 

 of the long-tailed field-mouse. The colour of these 

 dormice was a rich chestnut brown, darker by several 

 shades than the yellowish-brown individuals mostly 

 seen in confinement. — Benjamin Scott. . 



Pied Lapwing.— The pied lapwing was shot at 

 Pevensey on the 14th of September, 18S3. I might 

 also state that a cream-coloured starling was caught 

 at Crowhurst, near St. Leonards, last May, and is in 

 my possession. On the ist of August, I saw a white 

 martin at Rye ; it was being chased by several other 

 martins, who no doubt were astonished by the unusual 

 colour of their mate. — G. Bristoxv. 



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To Correspondents and Exchangers. — As we now 

 publish Science-Gossip earlier than heretofore, we cannot 

 possibly insert in the following nutnber any communications 

 which reach us later than the 8th of the previous month. 



To Anonymous Querists. — We receive, so many queries 

 which do not bear the writers' names that we are forced to 

 adhere to our rule of not noticing them. 



To Dealers and others. — We are always glad to treat 

 dealers in natural history objects on the same fair and general 

 ground as amateurs, in so far as the " exchanges " offered are fair 

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We request that all exchanges may be signed with name (or 

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H. Moulton may be informed that his ladybird was no doubt 

 Coccinella variabilis, a species quite as common as the more 

 familiar C. septem-punctaia. — W. C. Hey. 



J. O. B.— The fragments of spider sent belong to Dysdera 

 erythrina. Get Staveley's "British Spiders," published by 

 Lovell Reeve. 



J. Draby.— The piece of rock from quarry near Sunderland 

 is covered with the dendritic crystallisation of oxide of man- 

 ganese. It looks very much like a fossil moss, but it is not 

 organic at all. . 



W. Hamdrough.— Many thanks for sending us the curious 

 and beautiful specimen of the double feather of a pigeon. It is 

 very remarkable ; we have not seen anything like it before. 



• E. A. Dennis.— Thanks for the paper containing Mr. Cooper's 

 lecture, on Darwin. The lecturer evidently understands as 

 much of the Darwinian theory as he does of Sanscrit. 



