HARD WICKE'S SCIENCE- G OSSIF. 



93 



paper on the Wye Valley plants (p. 68) ? By the inser- 

 tion of two semicolons and the transposition of a 

 word, Valeriana sambucifolia is made to " climb over 

 bushes ; " and the Chrysosplenium to grow on a tree ; 

 instead of which Stellaria jt?)ibrosa was the climber, 

 and the navelwort the parasite. Euphorbia " striata''^ 

 is a misprint for stricta. While upon this subject, 

 may I add the following ? In the vicinity of 

 Blakeney, in the Forest of Dean, Hypintm atro-virens 

 was growing, a moss which I thought to be confined 

 to the summits of a few Scotch mountains. Can 

 any of your Gloucestershire readers inform me if this 

 is frequent in such low-lying districts ? — H. W. 

 Monin^ton. 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



Sense of Smell. — With all due deference to 

 Mr. Woodroffe Hill, I should somewhat doubt the 

 ability of even a well-trained blood-hound to track a 

 criminal in a crowded thoroughfare. What it might 

 be able to do at an hour when there would be little 

 or no traffic is a different matter. A bloodhound 

 might be staunch on the trail of a nigger and not 

 swerve even were it crossed by a white man, but 

 supposing other niggers were to touch upon the trail 

 of the man on whom it was first laid, would it not 

 be very likely to follow up the freshest scent? Let 

 us imagine a bloodhound following the footsteps of 

 a bloodstained murderer, and for some unfortunate 

 who had freshly cut himself, to cross the former's 

 track ; would the hound be able to distinguish 

 between the innocent and the guilty, and with some 

 subtle sense discover a difference in the odour of the 

 two men's boots ? We have in this locality some 

 splendid specimens of the old southern hound bred 

 by Squire Brook, the master of the Boxhill Harriers, 

 as staunch as hounds can be, and yet I have even 

 seen them change their hare. Might not a blood- 

 hound be as liable to make the same mistake as 

 regards his man, in a populous town ? — W. E. Windus, 

 Boxhill. 



Gossip about Foraminifera.— The author of 

 the above paper states that he is an " expounder of 

 curious facts." He then informs us that the sponges 

 form a group of animals in class Rhizopoda ! The 

 nomenclature is not reliable, as for instance, he 

 quotes Geopomis stella-borealis, the name given by 

 Ehrenberg in 1839 to the PolystomellastriatopimctaUts 

 named in 1803 by Frihtel and Moll. The figure 

 of Entosolenia squamosa is imaginary, the cavities 

 depicted should be imbrications. — Frederick Chat- 

 man. 



Earwigs.— The Rev. J. G. Wood, in his " Insects 

 Abroad," says (page 277) : " There is a great 

 difficulty about their scientific name." He is writing 

 about the earwigs. " By some they are called 

 Dermaptera, i.e. 'skin winged,' because their elytra 

 are soft and leathery. ... By others they are termed 

 Euplexoptera, or 'beautifully-folded wings,' ... as 

 if to add to the perplexity, some entomologists have 

 given the name of Dermaptera to the grasshoppers, 

 cockroaches, crickets, and other insects which are 

 known under the title of Orthoptera. I cannot bring 

 myself to acknowledge that this last-mentioned 

 arrangement can be correct." Now let me cite out 

 of Cuvier's " Animal Kingdom," edition 1834, 



vol. iii., p. 344: "In the sixth or the Orthoptera, 

 there are six legs." As a footnote is added on the 

 same page, " De Gerr established this order under 

 the name of Dermaptera, improperly changed by 

 Olivier to that of Orthoptera ; we preserve the latter, 

 however, as naturalists have generally adopted it." 

 And again in vol. iv. of the same edition, as a 

 footnote, " M. Kirby had previously established 

 under the denomination of Dermaptera," talking of 

 Euplexoptera, but De Gerr's title has a seniority of 

 some fifty years to Kirby's. Therefore ought not 

 naturalists to call the Orthoptera, *' Dermaptera, "and 

 the earwigs " Euplexoptera " ? But then the " Ulo- 

 nata " of Fabricius have still older seniority. I have 

 not yet seen a collection of grasshoppers, &c., labelled 

 "Dermaptera," or " Ulonata." I should be very 

 glad if some one would inform me on this subject. — 

 Geo. IV. Kirkaldy. 



Nomenclature. — I have been rather puzzled 

 about certain generic names, particularly in zoology. 

 I have always read that two generic names, spelt the 

 same, cannot be allowed, even though one be the 

 title of a bird and the other a shell. The satin moth 

 is called Liparis, and a shell fish is called Liparis. 

 Echidna is the generic name both for the porcupine 

 ant-eater, and for a Peruvian viper ; Acanthopus 

 (Meg.) belongs to the heteromerous coleoptera ; 

 Acanthopus (Kliig) belongs to the fam. Apida;. 

 Again, I always thought seniority had priority, but 

 ornithorhynchus (Blumenbach) is the generic name 

 in use for the duck-billed platypus ; although platypus 

 (Shaw) has seniority ; while platypus (Herbst.) is 

 used for the coleopterous xylophagi. Herbst lived 

 from 1743 to about 1800; Shaw lived from about 

 1760 to 1815 ; Blumenbach from about 1760 to 1830. 

 I should also be obliged if some reader could inform 

 me of a book (not more that 7^^. 6^.) about the com- 

 parative anatomy of the vertebrates, particularly the 

 dentition. — G. IV. Kirkaldy. 



Bearded Tit. — Whilst collecting mosses on the 

 banks of the Ouse, near York, in November this year, 

 I had the pleasure of watching the movements of one 

 of these birds, a very rare species here. I had 

 clambered along the trunk of an overhanging willow, 

 when the bird alighted amongst the branches. I 

 watched it hopping from twig to twig for some 

 moments, within a few feet of my head, and have no 

 doubt whatever of its identity. — J. A. Wheldon. 



The Great Sea Serpent. — I have just accom- 

 plished the task of analysing and collecting over one 

 hundred notices ancient and modern, true and fictitious, 

 relating to the great sea-serpent. Balancing im- 

 partially the resulting evidence, I am driven to the 

 conclusion that it is a venerable sailor's yarn derived 

 from ocular impression, while, quite apart from all 

 other considerations, it is mainly impossible that a 

 species of air-breathing serpent of such extensive dis- 

 tribution should lie at the bottom of the ocean and be 

 so Seldom seen ; and its most ardent champions have 

 never fully, I think, realised this circumstance, 

 (.liant squids or calamars, distinguished from our 

 better known cuttle fish by their cylindrical bodies, 

 have existed from all antiquity on the ocean beds all 

 over the world where the fish on which they prey 

 abound. The tentacular arms of these squids attain 

 an enormous length, and hence has originated a story 

 of the great sea serpent. American naturalists have 

 but quite lately given their attention to the giant 

 squids of the Newfoundland banks and secured 

 specimens for their museums ; they have come to be 

 known generally as Architeuthis, but as regards the 

 species and general classification oftheir kind we have 



