HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



117 



fine specimen, measuring over 4 ft. 6 inches across 

 the wings. The only other records I can find of this 

 species being taken about here are, one shot at 

 Lobstock Flats, 1852, and another at Blackstone 

 Edge, 1868.—/'. W. Papk, 62 Waterloo Street, 

 Bolton. 



The "Wandering Jew."— In reply to your 

 enquirer, Mr. John Christie, the above name is 

 applied in this neighbourhood to Linaria Cymbalaria, 

 Mill, but I have met with very few persons, not 

 botanists, who are able to give any name at all to 

 this plant. — IV. P. Hamilton, Shracshnry. 



Plantago lanceolata.— F. H. Arnold's note 

 on F. maritima calls to mind a curious freak of 

 nature in the case of P. lanccolata. Last August I 

 collected a specimen, one of the peduncles of which 

 bore on its apex, in place of the usual flower-head, a 

 complete plant in miniature, with leaves one to three 

 inches long, and one or two small flower-heads on 

 short pedicels arising from among them. The 

 appearance resembled, at first sight, that of Paris 

 quadrifolia. — W. P. Hamilton, Shrewshiry. 



Hawfinches and Crossbills at Stapleton 

 Park. — The hawfinch nests annually at Stapleton 

 Park, near Pontefract. Last year the nests and eggs 

 were seen by the keepers there. A flock of crossbills 

 appeared at this place in autumn, and were seen till 

 December, or later. Out of six shot, two were males 

 in fine crimson plumage. — Geo. Roberts. 



Nightingale in Wales.— In June of 1888, a 

 corresponding friend. Miss Wordsworth, of New 

 Brighton, near Liverpool, informed me that a night- 

 ingale had been heard singing at Bodrhyddan Park, 

 near Rhyl, in North Wales. As this bird is so 

 seldom heard in Wales, I should like to ask if any 

 one living in the West of England, or Wales, could 

 give any more information about it. During the last 

 ten or twelve years the nightingale has been heard 

 farther north than in previous years, and it may be 

 extending westward. — Geo. Roberts, Lojthotise. 



Shell-Changing, and Fluid Membranes.— 

 The following extract from Emerson's Essay on " Com- 

 pensation," may interest, if not amuse, some of your 

 readers: "The changes which break up at short 

 intervals the prosperity of men are advertisements of 

 a nature whose law is growth. Every soul is by this 

 intrinsic necessity quitting its whole system of things, 

 its friends, and home, and laws, and faith, as the 

 shell-fish crawls out of its beautiful but strong case, 

 because it no longer admits of its growth, and slowly 

 forms a new house. In proportion to the vigour of 

 the individual, these revolutions are frequent, until in 

 some happier mind they are incessant ; and all worldly 

 relations hang very loosely about him, becoming, as it 

 were, a transparent fluid membrane, through which 

 the living form is seen, and not, as in must men, an 

 indurated heterogeneous fabric of many dates, and of 

 no settled character, in which the man is imprisoned. 

 Then there can be enlargement, and the man of to-day 

 scarcely recognises the man of yesterday." — John 

 Haweil, M.A., Inglely, Greenhow Vicarage. 



" Vandal Naturalists."— I was very pleased to 

 see the remarks made by Mr. Williams, under this 

 head, in the last number of Science-Gossip. There 

 is, among naturalists, far too much of the collecting 

 spirit, and too little of the searching out of new facts. 

 The lepidopterist procures a cabinet, spaces the \ 

 drawers off into a certain number of partitions, 

 allotting a space to each of the British species ; he 



gets the spaces filled up as quickly as he can, by 

 capture, exchange, or by buying, if he can afford. As. 

 each space is filled up, the name of the insect is crossed 

 off on his exchange list, and he has done with that 

 particular kind — would not go twenty yards out of his 

 way to take it again, unless he had some idea of 

 exchanging it for others he had not got. Some 

 collectors even go so far as to refuse an insect unless 

 it be "bred," and pinned with a "black pin." I 

 sometimes wonder whether such persons are making 

 collections of insects or pins ? Now I think this is 

 vandal in the extreme — to pretend to be studying a 

 science and refuse to look at specimens unless they 

 are pinned in a certain way. The true student 

 will be glad, even of a single wing, rather than be 

 without. To allot a space for Acronycta al/ii, equal 

 to that for Apema oculea, is unjust. If the space 

 is short it is inadequate to show the variations 

 of the latter, and if long it is unfair, even if one 

 can, to fill it with such a rare thing as the former. 

 Egg collectors, I am afraid, are also getting much 

 into the "mere collector" style. The system of 

 collecting clutches, seems to me to be one we should 

 discourage. Generally the eggs in the same nest are- 

 very much alike, and, as each collector will probably 

 want all the varieties he can get, he will require so- 

 many clutches ; and if all the collectors went in for 

 clutches, each one requiring say half-a-dozen nests of 

 each kind, what would become of our rarer birds ':f 

 There has been a great deal said and too much done 

 about bird protection ; but the persons who are to 

 blame for the destruction of our rarer visitors are these 

 wholesale destroyers, and those who offer pren.iums 

 for the slaughtered victims. A person is so purely 

 scientific that he will not have an imported skin in 

 his collection ; but if he hears of aland grouse having 

 flown from Asia to Britain, he will give five pounds- 

 to the person who can slaughter it. An Act has been 

 passed to protect this bird in Britain, such an Act is 

 unjust ! It is the whim of a iew, carried out at the 

 expense of the many. If land grouse do come, and 

 persons who make their living by killing and stuffing 

 birds, find customers ready to give five pounds each 

 for the birds, such persons have a perfect moral right 

 to kill them, as much as another has to make his 

 living by killing herrings, shrimps, or oxen, unless it 

 can be shown that in his doing sothe country suffers, 

 and only under these circumstances should the law 

 interfere. I should very much like to see the land 

 grouse settle here and breed, and would do everything 

 I could to induce them to do so ; but I have no right 

 if I have the power, to force another person to conform 

 to my thoughts, however much I would that he should'. 

 do so.— .5". Z. Mesley, Beatiinont Park Museicm, 

 Hziddersjield. 



The Huddersfield Naturalists' Society 

 has decided to publish the first part of a Flora of the 

 district. It will contain the wtiole of the flowering, 

 plants, and will be sent to all societies which have 

 favoured us with their publications. We send this 

 notice because we have not published anything for the 

 last two years, and have, therefore, not been able to 

 make returns for favours received.—^. L. Mosley, 

 Hon. Sec., Beaumont Park Museum. 



Beavers of Bute. —In "Notes and Jottings 

 of Animal Life," published by Smith, Elder, & Co., 

 will be found not the least interesting of the late 

 Frank Buckland's many interesting papers, called 

 "Lord Bute's Beavers." I presume it is this your 

 correspondent B. Le T. refers to. — Walt'^r H. Short. 



Localities. — Can any reader of Science-Gossip 

 say what counties Cadnant and Newsham Loch are 



