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HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE- GOSSIP. 



acquainted. Its odour is suggestive of that of the 

 " tea-scented " rose of cultivation, and has much the 

 same character. Has any one noticed the scent of 

 the closely-allied R. stylosa, now reckoned as a 

 subspecies under the general he&di oi R. arvensis F 

 Sir J. Smith, who alone, as far as I know, has men- 

 tioned the subject, savs only that it is " fragrant." 

 ("Eng. Bot." ed. i. 1. 1795). It would be interesting 

 to know if the two plants had this (very subsidiary) 

 character in common.— i^. A. Pryor. 



British Shuews. — Will some contributor or 

 reader of Science- Gossip kindly inform me how 

 many species of shrews are placed on the British 

 list ? — JF. H. Warner, Kingston. 



Do EisnEs MOVE after Death ?— " D. H. E.'s" 

 question is somewhat of a hibernicism, but I would 

 state, in reply, that they do sometimes move after 

 being apparentlij dead. This is especially the case 

 witli the gobies, which are very tenacious of life. I 

 have found them live for a considerable time under 

 strange conditions : e. g., on being transferred from 

 salt to fresh water, and even after being put into 

 spirits of wine and water ; and they will continue to 

 breathe for a lengthened period after being removed 

 from the water, and, when apparently quite dead, 

 will revive on being restored to salt water. If the 

 change from salt to fresh water be effected gra- 

 dually, they live as welL in one as in the other, 

 and become very attractive objects for the aqua- 

 rium. — L, 



White Apple. —An esteemed American corre- 

 spondent has sent us what, he believes, is a reply 

 to Mr. Pearson's query f (Science-Gossip, May, 

 1873), relative to the " White Apple," in the form 

 of an extract from the American Agriculturist for 

 June, 1820 : — " A large share of the vegetable food 

 of some of the Western tribes of Indians is the 

 Prairie Apple, or Pomme Blanche, as it was named 

 by the French voyageurs. It is the root of a 

 Psoralea (P. esculenta), which is found from Wis- 

 consin westward to the Rocky Mountains. The 

 plant grows about a foot high, has leaves with five 

 divisions, and its flowers are clustered in a dense 

 head, much resembling a large clover ; the flowers 

 are purplish-blue. The root is turnip-shaped, and 

 somewhat farinaceous ; and though it would be 

 considered scarcely edible by us, is gathered in 

 large quantities by the Indians, and stored for the 

 ■winter." 



Mespilits. — In answer to Mr. Wilkinson's in- 

 quiry, in the May number of your Magazine, as to 

 the locality in which t he Mespilus germunica maj^ be 

 found, I beg to state that having for some time 

 resided at Blecliingley, in the neighbourhood of 

 Pedhill, and having while there taken some little 

 interest in the flora of the district, I shall be most 

 happy to communicate with Mr. Wilkinson, if he 

 Mill favour me with his address. I remember 

 having met with a tree at Nuffield, with which I 

 was not then acquninted, and which answers in 

 every point to the description given of the Mespilus 

 in Babingtou's and other floras. — Walter Leslie. 



A Domestic Calamity.— History being always 

 welcome, I venture to chronicle a somewhat un- 

 usual incident which occurred in my garden yester- 

 day. A pair of spotted fly-catchevs built their nest 

 lately on one of the capitals of tlie columns sup- 

 parting our portico, a water-pipe being on one 

 side, and the iiouse-wall at the back. I and ray 

 family have been much interested in watching the 



proceedings of these pretty, innocent little birds. 

 Judge then our dismay, wlien sitting out under a 

 tree near, we observed the hen bird and nest sud- 

 denly descend to earth, and both execute marvellous 

 gyrations thereon. My son easily caught tlie bird, 

 with nest attached, when the cause of this domestic 

 disturbance became manifest. A woman has been, 

 by misogynous old batchelors, said to be at 

 the bottom of all mischief. It proved so in this 

 case, for having used a woman's long hair in the 

 construction of her nest, the little bird had got its 

 head and neck through a loop of the said hair, and, 

 on attempting to leave her nest, had brought both 

 herself and it and four or five eggs to grief! — 

 Windsor E. Hambrough. 



Chickens and Sparrows.— We have some 

 young bantams in our yard, which are much an- 

 noyed by the sparrows, which come to eat their 

 rice. It was amusing this morning to see a chicken, 

 six weeks old, seize a sparrow by the head and hold 

 him for quite five minutes. It made such a noise 

 that it attracted a cat ; but the chicken now be- 

 came alarmed in her turn, and allowed the sparrow 

 to make its escape. I think it will not again inter- 

 fere with the bantams' food. — II. F. M. 



Cossus.— Mr. W. H. Spicer, in his article on 

 Cossus, errs in stating that the larvai of C. ligni- 

 perda is not an oak-feeder. I could show him an 

 oak-tree at Sel hurst, from which I took last autumn 

 more than thirty larva;. The tree in question is 

 completely riddled from the ravages of this moth. 

 Looking about a fortnight since to see if any had 

 changed, I found one in the chrysalis state, and on 

 examining the cocoon more closely, I found a small 

 hole bored through it ; on _1)reaking it open I saw a 

 small ligniperda larva in its first year, which had 

 eaten its way through the cocoon, and was then 

 feasting on the chrysalis of the large one. It had 

 eaten nearly half; it could not have been for want 

 of food, for it had plenty. Is this an usual occur- 

 rence ? — W. L. Sarjeant. 



Tortoises. — Your correspondent "E. M. P." 

 asks in the last number of Science-Gossip if 

 tortoises are known to be destructive to vegetation. 

 We have kept a tortoise for the last two years for 

 the purpose of eating slugs and snails. 1 have never 

 seen it eating any, but, on the contrary, its carapace 

 is often covered with them, and it does not make 

 the slightest attempt to eat them. It, has often been 

 caughi in the act of eating the young leaves of 

 plants, especially of the Spircea.— Brian Rigden, 

 Canterbury. 



Mistletoe. — In your last interesting number of 

 Science-Gossip, subject, "On the Legends and 

 History of certain Plants," the writer states, speak- 

 ing of mistletoe, the seed is in fact carried by birds. 

 Now, nothing is so easy to propagate as mistletoe. 

 At our President's seat, Ynisygerwnn, near Neath, I 

 have lately seen a small orchard of apple-trees, with 

 a plant on nearly every tree, from the one-year-old 

 just developed two-leaved plant to the more extended 

 branches of every consecutive year up to eight, 

 which last is a fine bushy plant, almost suflicient of 

 itself to decorate a baronial hall. In fact, nothing 

 is so easy to propagate, and all the plants in this 

 orchard were raised in this way : Obtain a berry and 

 squeeze it with the thumb into the wrinkled or 

 cankered bark of the apple-tree, and in the course 

 of the next year jou will be sure to discern the 

 germ of the young mistletoe. ^ It seems to me, from 



