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



I give it water twice daily, no baths. It has a 

 peculiar cry when it sees anything it wants, or when 

 it wants something not in sight. Sometimes I am at 

 a loss to know what it wants, but frequently when 

 such is the case, on offering water it drinks it with 

 avidity. — Philip Barker, The Grove, Nantwich. 



Treserving Flowers. — Will any of the readers 

 of this paper tell me, what is the best liquor to 

 preserve flowers and parts of flowers in, without the 

 destroying of their colour and structure ? — En. 

 Svcnsk. 



The Winter Nest of the Harvest Mouse. — 

 Although spread over a great part of Europe as far 

 as Western Asia, yet the harvest mouse {AIiis 

 mimitus) is generally reputed a species of rare 

 occurrence. But several circumstances may account 

 for this. Its very diminutive size and the rapidity of 

 its motions often cause it to be overlooked. That this 

 little creature builds for itself a bird-like nest has long 

 been known, and it is so singular a fact that it must 

 attract curiosity ; but it would now appear to have 

 not only a summer nest, but to build, at least in 

 certain localities, a winter nest, into which during the 

 cold season it retreats. In a very charming article in 

 a recent number of "Notes from the Leyden 

 Museum," Professor H. Schlegel describes these 

 winter nests as he found them in a locality near 

 Leyden in 1868. This locality is situated at a distance 

 of about two miles from Leyden, in the neighbour- 

 hood of the castle of Endegeest, celebrated as having 

 served for a refuge to the philosopher Descartes after 

 his exile from France. Here, on the right-hand side 

 of the road leading to the village of Rynsburg, not less 

 celebrated for its abbey than for being the residence 

 of Spinoza, there is to be found a ditch some quarter 

 of a mile in length and six paces in width. Part of 

 the border of this ditch was grown over with reeds. 

 Close observation .soon showed that these reeds 

 actually contained about fifty nests of this little mouse. 

 During the breeding season these were of the usual 

 globular form, of the average size of a man's fist, and 

 showing near the top a little circular opening for the 

 entrance of the little animal. But the winter nests 

 were quite different. These were composed of various 

 mosses, and were attached to and between several 

 stems of reeds, exactly like the nests of the reed 

 warblers, but more fusiform, of from six inches to a foot 

 in diameter. They showed no inlet, and were placed 

 at the height of a foot over the water's level. The 

 animal when entering had to remove the upper part 

 of the covering, which was less densely interwoven, 

 and was concealed between the moss. It would seem 

 evident that the building of these nests was a just cal- 

 culation of being safe against the danger of drowning. 



Weasel or Stoat ? — My attention has been 

 directed to S. A. Brenan's note at page 166, in which 

 he says — " W. Thompson in his ' Nat. Hist, of 

 Ireland,' writes that it has been found at Torhead." 

 Your readers can judge of the value of S. A. Brenan's 

 "own observation that the weasel is to be found in 

 the North of Ireland," when they have the ipsissima 

 verba of our Belfast naturalist before them, vol. iv. 

 page 6. " The Weasel, &c. — I have never met with 

 this animal in Ireland, nor do I consider that the species 

 has yet been satisfactorily proved to be native, 

 although it may be so. The stoat which passes 

 under the name oi 7ueasel m this country is common 

 thoughout the island : and from the circumstance of 

 Templeton having noted the weasel as ' common,' and 

 the stoat as ' rare,' I am led to believe that by weasel 

 he meant stoat. Macgillivray tells us (' Brit. Quad.' 



page 164), that the weasel ' is generally distributed in 

 Ireland,' but no authority is given. Mr. J. V. Stewart 

 notes both the weasel and stoat as occurring in 

 CO. Donegal ; and two skins of the true weasel were 

 given to me in 1842, which were said to have been 

 obtained at Tor Head (co. Antrim)." The italics are 

 Mr. Thompson's, who evidently intended to convey 

 that he doubted their Hibernian origin. Mr. 

 Thompson's accuracy is too sacred to allow such a 

 misquotation as above to remain uncorrected. The 

 matter can be settled by .S. A. B. in his own favour by 

 his producing some of his Ulster acquaintances, the 

 Irish weasels. — A Member of the Belfast Naturalists^ 

 Field Club. 



Hare-bell z'. Hair-bell. — ^Perhaps you are grow- 

 ing weary of this subject, unless you agree with me 

 that it is only by arguments such as these that we are 

 able to come to any proper conclusion in such matters. 

 Although, from the hair-like stalk of Campanula 

 rotundifolia it may seem better to call it hair-bell, 

 its most ancient name appears to be hare-bell, from its 

 being found on heaths and in thickets most fre- 

 quented by hares. Bailey, in his Dictionary, 1776, does 

 not mention the flower under any name : but Walker, 

 in his Dictionary, 1S57, speaks of hare-bell, as being 

 a blue of a bell-shape ; and he also speaks of hair- 

 bell as being the hyacinth. Indeed there appear 

 some good grounds for such a name ; for Dioscorides, 

 a Greek physician of the time of Nero, tells us that the 

 root of this flower will procure hair on bald and 

 beardless men. From this we may gather that Cam- 

 panula rotundijolia is the hare-bell of the poets ; and 

 that Hyacinthus non-scriptits is the Hair-bell of modern 

 writers. — A. IF. Peachey, Tewkesbury, Gloucester. 



Hair-Bell, Hare-Bell and Air-Bell. — Surely 

 the wild hyacinth is the hair-bell said to derive its 

 name from the tremulous motion of its flowers, which 

 inditate, so some writers opine, the breathing of 

 the hare. The hair-bell was, I always thought, 

 identical with the air-bell of the poets, the 

 Campanula rotundifolia, whose stamen stem resem- 

 bles the moss hair, and whose elastic stem also waves 

 with even the slightest breeze. Scott calls this 

 flower the hare-bell, but the succulent stem of the 

 true Hyacinthus non-scriptus would, if trodden 

 upon, be too crushed to rise again, as the poet 

 describes his hair-bell to have done when " Ellen's " 

 fairy step bent them ; therefore one can but conclude 

 Scott mistaken and botanists right, when they say 

 that the hare-bell is the wild hyacinth, and the hair- 

 bell or air-bell the Campanula rotundifolia. — Helen 

 E. IFatjiey. 



The Regime of a Fowl House. — From a 

 window of my lodgings I can see a fowl-house, 

 inhabited by about a score of fowls. During the 

 summer there was order in this house, the order 

 being maintained by the cock. Once, and once 

 only, I saw two hens fighting, but after a few minutes 

 the cock managed to pacify them, by a mixture of 

 caresses and pecks. I may add, that this fight arose 

 because one hen would not budge for another that 

 had chickens. Recently the cock has been removed, 

 and the hens left without a master. The consequence 

 is, that now the hens are engaged in either real or 

 sham fights all the day long. Sometimes the whole 

 lot of tliem will start careering about their house, 

 indulging in a species of tournament, which generally 

 terminates in a pitched battle. Thus the order of 

 the community seems to depend on the cock entirely. 

 — JK H. Bansall, B.A. Cantab. 



