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HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



l)oast to have killed a "May-fox," but this year 

 almost before the beginning of April the sweet violet 

 had done flowering. — 'Js. Biickiiiaii, Bradford Abhas. 



The True May {Cratui^ns oxyacantJia) in the 

 middle of April is in flower this year, and s.hows 

 greater promise than is often witnessed until the end 

 of the May month. ^y^. Biickiiiaii, Bradford Abbas. 



Peridermum Pint. — I have found this interesting 

 fungus on the 20th of April, growing in moderate 

 quantity on young fir-trees, about two miles from 

 Storrington. The fact of its having been found in 

 different localities proves that this fungus is not so 

 rare in l-^nglan 1 as it was at first supposed. — J. 

 Tcmpcre, Storrington. 



Prunus and Pvrus. — Strolling in my orchard and 

 examining the wonderful wealth of bloom with which 

 every tree was this year loaded, I observed that while 

 in the genus Pnnais (the plums and cherries), whose 

 flowers have one style only, the short inner stamens 

 ripen their pollen earlier than the outer ones ; in 

 Byriis, the pear, with 3 to 5 styles, the outer stamens 

 ripen first. All the plums were visited by multitudes 

 of tawny-coloured flies, whereas about the pear-trees 

 there wera only a few honey-bees. Perhaps the 

 ripening of the pollen may have some relation to the 

 size and habits of these insects. — /'. 7'. ^^lotf, 

 Leicester. 



Peculiar Cucumber.^Iu the forcing house in 

 my garden there is a cucumber growing about ten 

 inches long, from the side of \\hich a leaf is growing, 

 about three and a half inches in length. Is this not 

 of \ery rare occurrence ? — George IT. Payne. 



GEOLOGY. 



Stone Implements. — A fine specimen of a so- 

 called perforated hammer, weighing over two pounds 

 and found nearHemel Hempstead, has just come into 

 my possession. The perforation is what is called 

 "double bell-mouihed ;" and, as I do not meet with 

 any satisfactory explanation of this singular shape, I 

 would suggest one of my o\\ n. Should my conjecture 

 be correct, hammer would be an inappropriate word, 

 for I am inclined to think that the hafting must have 

 consisted of a handle driven in and projecting on 

 either side. Supposing this to have been the case, 

 the double bell-mouthed perforation can easily be 

 accounted for. When fresh made the two entrances 

 of the perforation would, in all probability, be slightly 

 larger than the centre, owing to the natural tendency 

 there is, in driving holes into hard bodies, to make 

 the upper larger than the lower part. It is also 

 needless to remark that a great saving of trouble 

 could be effected by commencing on the two opposite 

 surfaces and meeting in the middle. Now suppose 



the tool to be ready for use, the two handles grasped 

 in the hands of the workman and the blows given to 

 fall slightly sideways, the stone would twist, leaning 

 with the opposite edges of each entrance of the 

 perforation on the handles. Then by a constant 

 repetition of blows and an occasional revolution of the 

 stone, two conical holes, converging towards the centre, 

 would result. On passing a rod through the perfora- 

 tion of the one I am writing about, I tind that, when 

 the rod rests on the extreme edge of one side of the 

 aperture, it also touches the extreme and opposite edge 

 of the opposite aperture. From this I conclude that 

 it was used as a double-handed hammer, and that the 

 bell-shaped perforations are due to the revolutions of 

 the stone and consequent friction. — B. Pifflird. 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



Winter Nest of thi; Harvest Mouse. — The 

 harvest mouse (Altis niinutus) is very common in our 

 upland corn-fields, but 1 never yet detected it in 

 marshy districts, or on the moorlands. The boys 

 from the grammar school are never at a loss to find 

 out its winter quarters, in sandy hedge-banks, in 

 miniature burrows, in which a nest is made with 

 dried grasses. In this respect it differs in its habits 

 from the dormouse^ for the latter reposes snugly rolled 

 up at the bottom of a thorny bank, but never in a 

 burrow. Again we find the nests amongst tall reeds 

 and withered grass stems, in our marsh ditches, close 

 to the side of the ditch bank, but we have invariably 

 decided they were the nests of the short-tailed field 

 mouse ; now, however, our eyes are opened, by the 

 brief note in January SctENCE-GossiP. We purpose 

 doing our best, to find out their nature, before the 

 present winter is gone. Would our friends in the soulli 

 of England, also keep a sharp look-out ? — R. 



Swallows' Nests.— Some years ago, when on a 

 visit to AsfordJy, near Melton Mowbray, a similar 

 case occurred there to that mentioned by your cor- 

 respondents. Two pairs of swallows built their nests 

 on the beams which supported the roof inside the 

 school-room and reared their young, and notwith- 

 standing the noise and bustle of over onediundred 

 children, the birds were continually flying in and out 

 of the school-room all day long, and never seemed 

 to be at all disconcerted, their place of ingress and 

 egress being through a sliding ventilator which was 

 always kept open. — John If. Webb. 



Swallows' Nest. — About ten years ago a pair of 

 swallows built a nest in a shed here, and one day, 

 before the young were fully fledged, the structure gave 

 way and all the youngsters were thrown down. Hear- 

 ing a noise I looked in and found them all helpless on 

 the floor ; I picked them up and placed them in a tin 

 dish and nailed it to the rafter, where the nest had 

 dropped off, the old ones continued to feed them, as 

 though nothing had happened. That tin dish still 

 remains and two broods of young swallows have been 

 reared in it every summer since. — W. Sim, Fyvie. 



Sw.\LLOWs' Nests. — I know positively that there 

 has been a swallow's nest in the timber of the roof of 

 a partly-open shed in a chemical works in Kent, every 

 spring, for the last three years, and I have been told 

 that there was a nest there before. The shed contains 



