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HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



at the time when she was supposed to calve, fell 

 down sufferinnr from the pains of parturition ; after 

 a short time she got up seemingly all right. On 

 the following day the same thing occurred, when a 

 flow of milk came to the udder, and she has been 

 milked regularly ever since, no calf having ever 

 been born. The cow is in perfect health.^ — S. A. B, 



Mole.— In answer to Mr. W. H. Warner's query, 

 I beg to state, from the authority of the late Mr. 

 Wm. Thompson, in his " Nat. Hist, of Ireland," 

 that the mole is not indigenous. "It is singular," 

 he says, "when entering Scotland or Wales at the 

 nearest points to Ireland, to see molehills in both 

 these countries almost as soon as we land." — Kev. 

 S. A, Brendn, Fomeroy. 



" Glow-wokms," p. 190.— As the Editor of 

 Science- Gossip has remarked, "it is the female 

 glowworm that glows;" but I have seen larvae 

 slightly luminous, although I do not fancy they are 

 all so gifted, possibly only those which will develop 

 into females -. the head of the male, with its won- 

 derfully developed eyes, is well worth examination. 

 —R F. F. 



Old Tkee. — There has been some correspond- 

 ence about great trees lately. Here in the south of 

 London, there is an old elm in the garden of a 

 friend of mine. The trunk is thirty-four feet 

 in circumference, and still bears many vigorous 

 branches.—^. P. F. 



Notes on Aphides, p. 173.— Mr. Westropp 

 states that he saw an aphis on a currant leaf give 

 birth to a young one, which '' regaled itself on the 

 juice that came from the syrup-tubes of its parent." 

 It would be interesting to know if he has seen this 

 more than once. If only once, was the insect on 

 a leaf attached to the bush, and was the bush out of 

 doors ? How was he watching the insect, under a 

 simple lens, or on the stage of a microscope, and 

 what was the power of the instrument used ? I 

 am sorry to ask so many questions, but would fain 

 learn if he has ever seen an aphis laying eggs ; if so, 

 what was the species ? was the insect winged ? 

 and what was the colour of the egg ?— E. F. F. 



Elight op Bieds. — In a recent No. of Sciekce- 

 Gossip, at p. 161, I see a paragraph on the flight of 

 birds. Allow me to state that the phenomenon 

 noticed by Mr. Guthrie is fully explained in " The 

 lleign of Law," by the Duke of Argyll. I have 

 not the book by me, and therefore cannot give the 

 exact reference. I strongly recommend your corre- 

 spondent, and any one else interested in the laws 

 regulating the flight of birds, to read this book, as 

 it is well worth careful study.— Jr^/nw F. Buxion. 



QuiCKSiGHTEDNEss OP SpAKiiows.— I have no 

 doubt that these birds, when they have been accus- 

 tomed to frequent gardens and the vicinity of 

 liouses, watch the proceedings of human beings 

 very closely, especially those from whom they have 

 received food. This I have proved repeatedly by 

 placing a moth upon the trunk or branch of a tree, 

 when within the course of a short time after, some 

 inquisitive sparrow would visit the spot and de- 

 molish the specimen, only leaving the wings to tell 

 the tale. Should we wish to make some experi- 

 ments as to the times of flight of different species, 

 by depositing them at liberty on trees or palings, 

 it is needful to select places where our proceedings 

 will not be spotted by hungry and investigating 

 sparrows. Under ordinary circumstances, these 



birds (and some other species) destroy many of the 

 moths which repose on trees ; and hence it is that 

 many of these insects, when they have expanded 

 their wings, creep down the trunks to hide in the 

 herbage beneath. — /. R. S. C. 



GoAT-MOTUS.- One morning in August, 1872, we 

 took on an ash-tree near our garden, two larvae of 

 Cossiis ligniperda, and in the afternoon of the same 

 day observed about half a dozen more in various 

 stages of growth. The first two we kept through 

 the winter under a bell-glass, with a supply of 

 willow wood, into which they very soon disap- 

 peared. At the beginning of this month our pa- 

 tience was rewarded by the appearance of two 

 moths. 1 may remark that the ash-tree mentioned 

 above is also infested by large numbers of wasps 

 and lied Admirals.—/. M. A. 



The Potato and Teutonic Tradition (p. 160). 

 — It is difficult to conceive of any possible connec- 

 tion between an " old Teutonic tracition " and the 

 potato, whicli was only introduced in 1586, and 

 certainly unknown before the discovery of America. 

 And as to the supposed benign influence of Gemini 

 (surely potatoes were not, even in Teutonic tradi- 

 tion, usually planted in May), the heavenly twins, 

 who themselves, I believe, left no earthly descend- 

 ants, have not been generally credited with any such 

 prolific power ; unless, indeed, the supposed un- 

 luckiness of marriages in May is to be atiributed to 

 a provident caution on the part of the iwiwxe, pafer- 

 familias as to the probable consequences of a too 

 rapid increase of family. — R. P. 



Legends and Histoky of Certain Plants 

 (p. 151). — ^" It was once a custom to pass cripples 

 through a natural rupture in this tree as a means 

 of cure." This is hardly correct : the " cripple " 

 was " naturally ruptured ;" the tree was split in 

 order to efl'ect his cure. Gilbert White gives the 

 following account of the process : — " These trees, 

 when young and flexible, were severed, and held 

 open by wedges, while ruptured children, stripped 

 naked, were pushed through the aperture, under a 

 persuasion that by such a process the poor babes 

 would be cured of their infirmity. As soon as the 

 operation was over, the tree, in the suti'ering part, 

 was plastered with loam, and carefully swathed up. 

 If the parts coalesced and soldered together, as 

 usually fell out when the feat was performed with 

 any adroitness at all, the party was cured; but 

 when the cleft continued to gape, the operation, it 

 was supposed, would prove ineffectual." (Letter 

 27 to Daines Harrington.) And Mr. Bennett adds 

 in a note, that " as ashes seldom fail to grow to- 

 gether after being split, so also does it rarely hap- 

 pen that infants afllicted with umbilical hernia fail 

 10 be relieved from it at a very early age." Fraxhms, 

 I may add, does not mean " lance," and the con- 

 nection between this tree and the doctrine of the 

 Fall of Man, which, by the way, finds no place in 

 Scandinavian mythology (Pliny's supposed anti- 

 pathy between the serpent and tlie ash would be 

 more to tlie purpose), has no real foundation. The 

 same may be said for Askenay, and in rather stronger 

 language". The derivations of "briar" from Briareus, 

 and " agrimonia " {Argos), and the extraordinary ap- 

 pearance of Mercury " in his character of Hermes, 

 the Physician," are equally unwarrantable (p. 150). 

 Vercain (p. 152) must have altered its habits 

 very much since the days of the Druids, if it ever 

 grew on "spots on which the sun and moon had 

 never shone."— -ft. A. Pnjor. 



