POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



853 



a yellowish head and brown jaws, eleven 

 segments back of the head, the breathing 

 mouths showing plainly along the side of 

 the body, and is "22 of an inch long. The 

 insects are voracious feeders, and numerous 

 enough to strip the strawberry-plants com- 

 pletely of leaves in the spring and after 

 harvest. The larvaj cat the young roots. 

 Both the larvae and the pupae harbor in the 

 earth about the roots of the plants. 



Singular Powers in Birds. Mr. A. D. 



Bartlett, of the London Zoological Society's 

 gardens, has called attention to the singular 

 fact, heretofore unnoticed, that certain birds 

 have the power of ejecting the inner linings 

 as well as the contents of their stomachs. 

 He first noticed this peculiarity when a 

 wrinkled hornbill {Buceros corrugatus) in 

 the gardens was observed to have thrown 

 up a closed bag resembling a fig, which 

 seemed to be the inner lining of the giz- 

 zard, being "somewhat tough, elastic, and 

 gelatinous," and contained plums or grapes 

 well packed together. He submitted the 

 ejection to Dr. Murie, who regarded it as 

 a result of disease, and expressed surprise 

 that the bird should have lived and been 

 able to feed after having made it. An- 

 other perfect specimen of the same kind 

 was obtained a few days afterward and pre- 

 served. Others were noticed, all from the 

 same bird, but they were destroyed by other 

 birds in the same cage before they could be 

 saved. Mr. Bartlett rejects the view that 

 the ejection is a sign of disease, and is 

 satisfied that it is a natural secretion pro- 

 vided for the bird during the breeding-sea- 

 son, and is the means by which the male 

 hornbill supplies the female bird during the 

 time he keeps her imprisoned, while she is 

 sitting on her eggs. His opinion is sup- 

 ported by the observations of travelers on 

 the habits of hornbills. The Rev. J. Mason 

 says that, in Burmah, the male bird shuts 

 the female in her nest in a hollow of a tree 

 by plastering up the opening with mud, 

 leaving only a place through which she can 

 put her head, and guards her there ; while, 

 to compensate her for the loss of her free- 

 dom, he " is ever on the alert to gratify his 

 dainty mistress, who compels him to bring 

 all her viands unbroken, for if a fig or any 

 fruit is injui'ed she will not touch it." Mr. 



Wallace also has observed that the entrance 

 to the nest of this bird is stopped up with 

 mud and gummy substances. Dr. Living- 

 stone states that when in Kolobeng, South 

 Africa, his attention was directed to the 

 nest of a hornbill, and he, looking, " saw a 

 slit only, about half an inch wide, and three 

 or four inches long, in a slight hollow of 

 the tree." The natives gave an account of 

 the imprisonment of the female bird similar 

 to that related by Mr. Mason, and added 

 that the male continued to feed her and her 

 young family till the young were fully 

 fledged, or for a period of two or three 

 months. "The prisoner," Dr. Livingstone 

 adds, " generally becomes quite fat, and is 

 esteemed a very dainty morsel by the na- 

 tives, while the poor slave of a husband 

 gets so lean that on the sudden lowering of 

 the temperature, which sometimes happens 

 after a fall of rain, he is benumbed, falls 

 down, and dies." Such exhaustion would 

 result naturally from the draft of repeated 

 ejections upon the vital forces. It is well 

 known that parrots, pigeons, and other 

 birds, reproduce their partially digested 

 food during the pairing and breeding sea- 

 son. The male hornbill has the same habit, 

 and a concave hornbill in the gardens " will 

 frequently throw up grapes, and, holding 

 them in the point of the bill, will throw 

 them into the mouth of the keeper if he is 

 not on the alert to prevent or avoid this 

 distinguished mark of its kindness." The 

 edible swallow's nest is made of a secretion 

 from the glands of a kind of swift; and 

 many other birds are known to cast up se- 

 cretions having individual peculiarities. Mr. 

 Bartlett, continuing his observations, has 

 found two other birds the darter {Plottis 

 anldnga) and the Brazilian cormorant {Pha- 

 lacrocorax Brazdiamis) which throw up the 

 inner linings of their stomachs, as do the 

 hornbills. 



Mode of Termination of Nerves in Mas- 

 tie, M. Foettinger has recently published 

 a memoir on the mode in which nerves ter- 

 minate in muscles. The muscles of insects 

 were selected for observation in preference 

 to those of other animals, because the de- 

 tails of their structure are more easily 

 recognizable under the microscope than 

 those of other groups of the animal king- 



