n6 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



as Simroth, who has carefully investigated the anatomy 

 of the European Limaces, finds it fully distinct, and 

 more nearly allied to Amalia than to Limax. In 

 discussing the species of Arion (pp. 265, 266), the 

 author proposes to unite bourguingati with subfuscus 

 as a variety. Simroth and others have nevertheless 

 detected anatomical differences, and I cannot imagine 

 any one familiar with the outward appearance of the 

 two species failing to distinguish them. "Arion 

 albus," of Linne, is a variety of A. ate/: Various 

 forms have been described as albus, flavus, etc., but 

 it does not appear to be proved that any of them are 

 good species, unless flavus is really identical with 

 Arion minimus of Simroth. — T. D. A. Cockerell, 

 West Cliff, Colorado. 



Lacuna pallidula. — I find the Lacuna pallidida 

 and Lactam divaricata are rather common at low- 

 water mark, on Laminaria, etc., on the Isle of Wight 

 coast, about Luccombe.— J. C. Eccles, Vent nor. 



MICROSCOPY. 



Enock's Sketches. — If anything would tempt a 

 young man to the study of natural history, it is the 

 periodical series of " Sketches " and " Slides " illus- 

 trated by the sketch, which Mr. Fred. Enock is 

 bringing out. The last slide (accompanied by the 

 usual carefully-drawn, detailed sketch and with a 

 minute description) is devoted to the spinnerets of 

 spider (Epeira diade/ua), female, prepared without 

 pressure. The object, therefore, retains all its 

 natural form and colour, and is perhaps the best Mr. 

 Enock has turned out — which is saying a good deal. 



Mr. Cole's Slides Redivivus.— Microscopists 

 and natural history students generally, will be pleased 

 to hear that Mr. Arthur C. Cole is in the field again. 

 We have received his new catalogue of micro- 

 scopical preparations, educational, physiological, 

 pathological and botanical. All workers should 

 forthwith procure this catalogue, for they will be sure 

 to find something in it they want. Accompanying 

 the catalogue were the following beautifully mounted 

 slides, in Mr. Cole's best manner: — "Budding of 

 Stem of Citron," " Feathers in follicles," " Growing 

 point of Mistletoe," and "Vertical Section through 

 Triton cristatus," showing the abdominal organs, etc. 



The Quekett Club.— The last "Journal" 

 contains the following papers : — " On the Structure 

 of Butterfly and Moth Scales," by T. F. Smith ; 

 " On the Formation of Diatom Structure," by E. M. 

 Nelson ; " Notes on Villi on the scales of Butterflies 

 and Moths," by Dr. Royston Pigott ; "Parasitism" 

 (address of the President, A. D. Michael) ; Reports, 

 Meetings, Lists of Members, etc. 



BOTANY. 



Autocopyist Illustrations.— Mr. J. Clayton 

 recently read a paper before the Bradford Naturalists' 

 Society on Pinus sylvestris, which was copiously illus- 

 trated by sectional and other details, all of which 

 were duplicated by an autocopyist apparatus, and 

 each member who heard the paper was furnished with 

 a sheet of drawings, and another of explanations. 

 This is a novel and clever method of enabling a 

 scientific audience to follow the reader of a paper, 

 both in his matter and illustrations. 



GEOLOGY, &c. 



Margate Flints. — Fossil sea-urchins in a silici- 

 fiedstate, commonly known as shepherd's crowns, are 

 familar to every dweller on the English chalk downs, 

 and to the contemplative mind often form the subject 

 of an hour's wonderment during a country walk 

 where the birds trill sweet melody in the hedge-rows. 

 Especially curious do they appear to those who first 

 meet with them beside some flowing river lined with 

 purple osiers or by the quite margin of the sea waves, 

 where the idea of the living things around being 

 changed into flint appears to the human mind an all 

 unfathomable mystery. I have known a singular in- 

 stance of a gentleman of superior professional attain- 

 ments and agreeable linguistic cultivation, who in 

 the Martinmas summer of extreme old age occupied 

 himself with an endeavour to prove, that flints were 

 the relics of a former world destroyed by the deluge, 

 and whose crowning satisfaction was the production 

 of an illustrated volume, at a considerable outlay, in 

 which the general reader might be startled to find 

 variously identified silicified monkeys, lady's slippers 

 and an Egyptian priestess, black but comely. He 

 had firmly convinced himself, and no less convinced 

 certain of his townsfolk, for he was likewise a ready 

 speaker, that the deluge poured in over the south- 

 eastern shores of England and washed all these 

 defunct oddities and more into his geranium beds. 

 One of his cherished fancies I recall was to convert 

 the authorities at the British Museum, with whom he 

 claimed to be at variance, to these most singular 

 views, and to this end, he once in good faith pressed 

 upon my acceptance a sea-urchin partially embedded 

 in a flint-stone, which he averred could be naught 

 else but a sea-bird overwhelmed when in the act of 

 masticating the said delicacy ; the gist of the argu- 

 ment here as elsewhere being that his flint fossils 

 preserved their forms and integuments, a circum- 

 stance which if once admitted, all the rest very 

 naturally followed. The authorities in question, I 

 chanced to hear, professed themselves alive to the 

 matter in dispute, which whatever charms it may 

 have exerted on the antiquarian ear did not distinctly 



