HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



137 



When the animals wish to feed, they swim under 

 water to the store, take a stick and strip it of its bark. 

 The inner part of the bark is eaten, and the peeled 

 sticks are used afterwards in the construction or repair 

 of weirs. 



Above the lowest and principal dam, and occupying 

 the whole course of the burn within the enclosure, are 

 the other smaller dams. At no point is the burn seen 

 running in its own bed. The uses of these dams are 

 various. They serve as canals for floating down 

 logs and branches. They also help to break the 

 force of a flood before it reaches the main dam, and 

 they afford the beavers their natural and most 

 convenient means of locomotion in passing up and 

 down the stream, as well as more numerous places of 

 refuge in case of attack. 



I said that mud and clay were carried between the 

 fore-legs and the throat or breast. • When pieces of 

 wood and stones are brought out of the water, they 

 are carried in much the same way. The keeper has 

 seen the beavers scrambling up the outside of the 

 house with small logs in their " arms," and when one 

 stumbled it fell forward on its breast and face, without 

 letting go its hold of the log. 



I visited the preserve again in January 1882. The 

 number of beavers was now supposed to be over 

 twenty. All the trees in the enclosure were cut 

 down, and the keeper had a supply of logs and 

 branches of willow trees, a portion of which he placed 

 inside the enclosure at intervals as required. The 

 place at which he deposited the logs is a considerable 

 distance up the bank from the dam, perhaps fifty 

 yards, and the animals had consequently to travel on 

 land that distance to reach their supplies. Sometimes 

 they cut pieces off, and carried them down to the 

 store, and sometimes it was found that they fed on 

 the bark where it lay. 



Although the beaver is so shy, it uses its powerful 

 teeth for defence when occasion requires. Some 

 time ago, one escaped from the enclosure, and was 

 caught in the plantation not far off. It showed fight, 

 but was secured by throwing a sack over it, and 

 lifting it over the railing. Whilst this was being 

 done, it partly disengaged itself, and imtaediately 

 fastened its teeth on everything that came within its 

 reach, not excepting legs and arms. It even caught 

 the iron railing and held to it most viciously till it 

 was pulled off by sheer force. 



I paid another visit to the preserve in April 1885. 

 The keeper was still at his post, but things were 

 somewhat altered. The marks of the beavers were 

 so few, that it was supposed that the number was 

 much reduced. Indeed, the keeper was not sure if 

 there were half-a-dozen left, and for anything he 

 knew they might be all males or all females. Foul 

 play was suspected, but it may be more charitable to 

 suppose that when the trees within the enclosure 

 were all cut down, the beavers' chief occupation was 

 gone, and that their mode of living afterwards, how- 



ever well they were fed and attended to, was some- 

 what more artificial and unnatural. However the 

 beavers may have fared, it was quite certain that 

 some dastardly savage had put poor "Jack" to a 

 cruel death, and his kennel was unoccupied. 



W. ' Steuart. 



GOSSIP ABOUT FORAMINIFERA. 



ALTHOUGH I should be sorry to attribute in- 

 tentional misrepresentation to Mr. F. Chapman, 

 he undoubtedly lays himself open to the imputation 

 when he so grossly misquotes me. If he will carefully 

 read my paper on Foraminifera, he will see that I do 

 not say that I am "an expounder of curious facts." 

 Nor is he a whit more happy in quoting others. Dr. 

 Carpenter states that, upon the Polystomella in 

 question, Fichtel and Moll bestowed the name 

 iVautihis striato-ptinctatus, and that in 1822 it was 

 Lamarck who conferred upon it the generic distinction 

 Polysto7nella. Subsequently, for some inscrutable 

 reason, Ehrenberg abandoned both generic and 

 specific names, changing them to Gcopoittts stella- 

 borealis. That this latter commends itself to not a 

 few, is proved by the fact that it so frequently occurs 

 in books : as one example, the " Micrographic 

 Dictionary." 



As regards EtiiosoIeJtia squamosa, var. hexag07ia, 

 I am not desirous of emulating Mr. F. Chapman's 

 aggressively dogmatical tone, but may nevertheless 

 be allowed to say that I decline to endorse his dictum 

 that the •' cavities depicted should be imbrications." 

 Except that, relatively to the raised ribs, the hexa- 

 gonal cells are undoubtedly hollows, they are neither 

 "cavities" nor "imbrications," but parts of the 

 convex surface of a globular body. 



Far sooner would I admit an error, and if possible 

 rectify it, than seek to perpetuate it. I therefore 

 gladly in part accept Mr. F. Chapman's correction. 

 My association of the Porifera with kindred groups 

 of lowly organisms arose from the fact that when I 

 wrote my paper, several years since, they were 

 generally so classed. I am, however, fully alive to the 

 fact that more modern zoologists, not all, have long 

 since adopted Dr. Grant's designation of Porifera. It 

 is some thirty-three years since Dr. Carpenter wrote 

 that Mr. Carter asserted that sponges "begin life as 

 solitary amcebse, and that it is only in the midst of 

 aggregations formed by the multiplication of these, 

 that the characteristic jr/£i;/^<r-structure makes its 

 appearance." 



Now, surprising as it will doubtless appear to Mr. 

 F. Chapman, many there are who to the present day 

 hold this opinion, believing that in their organisation 

 they so closely resemble the Amcebce, that they 

 actually hold them to be colonies of these organisms. 

 Dr. H, Alleyne Nicholson, in his 1875 edition of 

 " Zoology," says, " The last of the Rhizopoda which 



