136 



HAEBWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



Blair, in his "Grave," closely imitating the lan- 

 guage of Shakespeare, says : 



" Again ! the screech owl s/inWcs : ungracious sound ! 

 I'll hear no more ; it makes one's blood run cold." 



Keats, in his " St. Agnes' Eve," has the line : 

 "The owl for all his feathers was a-cold." 



Parnell speaks of the ^" Liva/iuig din " of the raven, 

 and Beattie, in his poem " The Minstrel." The word 

 "croaking" is frequently applied to the raven by 

 poets ; in fact the epithets boding, screeching, or 

 moping, croaking, meek or mournful, and gaudy 

 or painted seem to be almost indispensable when 

 mention is made of the owl, raven [^Corvics corax), 

 dove, and pheasant. In the same way the epithet 

 "limping" or "fearful" is nearly always applied 

 to the hare {Leptts timidus) : 



" The hare limped trembling through the frozen grass." 



— AVrt/'j. 



" In the long grass they skulk, or shrinking creep." 



— Soincrvillc. 

 Thomson has the line : 



"The hare li/njis awkward;" 



and he applies, too, the epithet " timid " to the same 

 animal. The following lines on the nightjar {Capi- 

 miilgus Europixus) are by Mary Roberts : 



" Oh, lover of the twilight, hail ! 



Say tu what deep and pathless vale, 



'Mid forest dark of aged oak 



Ne'er echoing with the woodman's stroke, 



Where Nature seems to sit alone. 



Majestic on a craggy throne. 



And nibbling flocks and herds are seen 



To wander 'mid the pathless scene, 



Dost thou on rapid pinions ha^te 



When summer's gladsome months are past?" 



These are very fine lines ; it is easier to imagine this 

 strange, weird bird, with its almost unearthly note, 

 inhabiting some deep, pathless wood than the bright 

 cheery coppices and woods of the south of England ; 

 it has always seemed to me to partake of the nature 

 of the owl, the swallow, and the cuckoo. Anatomists 

 say it much resembles the latter bird ; in its mode of 

 pursuing its prey it resembles the swallow, and it is 

 similar to the owl in its nocturnal habits. I took its 

 .two white elongated eggs, splashed with cinereous 

 grey, in North Hants in June 1S78; they always lay 

 their eggs, according to my observation, in under- 

 wood of about two or three years' growth. The 

 young are occasionally fed during the day. Gilbert 

 ^Vhite, in his exquisite poem, has the following 

 xiccurate lines : 



" While o'er the cliff th' awakened churn-owl hung 

 Through the still gloom protntcts his chattering song ; 

 While high in air, and poised upon his wings, 

 Unseen the soft enamoured woodlark sings." 



Thomson, in his "Spring," speaks of the sweet 

 song of the woodlark {Alauda arborca), and Ben 

 Jonson, in the "Grove," speaks of the "crested 

 lark," which I take to be the woodlark. William 

 Browne, in his " Pastorals," has the lines : 



" The mounting lark (dale's herald) got on wing, 

 liiading each bird chuse out his bough and sing." 



I think the woodlark is probably meant, as he is 

 enumerating the birds of the grove. Poems and pas- 

 sages in poetry on the skylark, blackbird, and song- 

 thrush are very numerous. Some of the most beautiful 

 poems on the skylark are Hogg's poem: "To the 

 Skylark," Shelley's "Skylark," and Wordsworth's 

 well-known verses. Other birds of the lark or 

 bunting kind are rarely mentioned ; of the yellow- 

 hammer {Emberlza citrinella), an anonymous writer 



says : 



"And from the bank 

 The ycllowhaninier flatter^ in short fears 

 From off it^, nCit hid in the grasses rank. 

 And drops again when no more noise it hears." 



It is not very happily expressed, but wonderfully 

 true to the bird's habits. On the corn-crake or 

 daker hen {Railus cre.x), I know of but two passages : 

 one is by Dr. Leyden, describing the unhappy fate of 

 the poor bird : 



" Agaia the ruthless weapon sweeps the ground. 

 And the grey corn-crake trembles at the sound ; 

 Her callow brood around her cowering cling, — 

 She braved its edge— she mourns her severed wing." 



The other is by Clare, the Northampton peasant ; it 

 is ^expressed with the poor fellow's usual simplicity 

 and accuracy. Many other passages on different birds 

 crowd on the memory, but I have already tried my 

 readers' patience too much. I shall end with the 

 following passage from Longfellow : 



" Even those migratory bands. 

 The minor poets of the air — 

 The plover, peep, and sanderling. 

 That hardly can be said to sing. 

 But pipe along the barren sands ; 

 All these have souls akin to ours." 



George Dewar. 



MICROSCOPY. 



Cutting Sections of Coal. — In reply to Mr, 

 W. Dalton Smith's query in the May number of 

 Science-Gossip, I have found the following method 

 of making coal-sections to be easy and successful. Jc 

 should be stated, however, that I have only tried that 

 particular kind of coal mentioned by Huxley as con- 

 taining macrospores and microspores in such abun- 

 dance, viz. the Better-Bed coal of Bradford and 

 district. Having selected a chip of coal, grind it 

 down to a smooth surface on an ordinary school-slate. 

 Then cement it to a glass slide, either with shellac or 

 Canada balsam ; the former is perhaps the easier of 

 manipulation. If balsam is used, it must be evapor- 

 ated until it is of such hardness that a dent can only 

 just be made in it by pressure with the thumb-nail, 

 then remelt it and fix the smooth surface of the coal to 

 the slide. The coal may then be ground on the slate 

 to such a thinness as to show the spores. The coal- 

 matrix containing the spores, cannot, as far as I am 

 aware, be ground sufficiently thin to be transpa- 

 rent, and if it could be so ground, it is doubtful 

 whether there would be any organic structure per- 



