44 



HARUWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



NOTES AND aUERIES. 



White Ants. — A friend of mine has his house 

 infested by small white ants. Can any of your 

 readers inform me how they can be got rid of? — 

 P. W. Rogers. 



Whitebait. — A good suggestion has been made 

 by Mr. J. K. Lord, in Land and Water, to the effect 

 that an experiment should be made in the Crystal 

 Palace Aquaria whether all the fish called " white- 

 bait " grow up into herrings, sprats, shods, gobies, 

 smelts, &c. 



Eauthtvoems.— In last month's Science-Gossip, 

 your correspondent E. P. P. wishes to know of more 

 authorities on the subject of worms. I find that 

 an anonymous writer in a series of papers in a 

 magazine of some few years back, gives the follow- 

 ing account of the comm.on earthworm. (He is talk- 

 ing about a man being pained by cutting the worms 

 in pieces with his spade.) "If some theories once 

 current had been correct, this severing the body 

 should have caused only the multiplication of the 

 individual ; for it was believed that each part con- 

 tained vitality, and became a perfect animal. The 

 progress of knowledge dissipated this idea, and esta- 

 blished the belief, that if an earthworm be cut in 

 two, only the piece which bore the head would be 

 found alive after the lapse of a few hours; that on 

 this segment a new tail would be gradually formed, 

 and all appearance of injury, in time, effaced. It 

 Avas also asserted, that 'if the division be made 

 near the head, the body will remain alive, and will 

 renew the head, and the head, with its few attached 

 segments will die.' " The statement that the head 

 will be thus renewed, has, however, been recently 

 called in question in A Report on the Structure, 

 Habits, and Classification of the British Annelidce, 

 by Dr. T. Williams. In this valuable communica- 

 tion it is stated, that "the views w^hich commonly 

 prevail with reference to the regenerative powers 

 of these animals are greatly exaggerated, if not 

 altogether incorrect. A true head is never repro- 

 duced. If a worm of any species, the Naisfiliforniis, 

 for example, upon which the principal of my obser- 

 vations have been instituted, be cut into two parts, 

 the anterior never reconstructs a true tail; nor does 

 the posterior ever re-organjze a true head; but both 

 fragments will live for a considerable time, and the 

 anterior extremity of the posterior fragment will 

 suck in nourishment, swell in size, and become 

 more vascular, while it preserves the distinctive 

 orgauization of one of the middle rings of the body. 

 It never re-forms a true head." — //. A. A. 



Alauda akboeea. — How is it possible to de- 

 scribe this delightful bird, the Tree Pipit? The 

 months of song are IMay and June ; and if it be true 

 that the Cuckoo at this time sings night and day, it 

 is also certainly true that the Tree Pipit quite 

 makes up by day for the short rest it takes by 

 night. Por the complete enjoyment of this bird's 

 music, I will suppose the reader in a hay field, rcdo- 

 .lent with sweet clover and grasses, and the many 

 hundred odours of early summer. I would then 

 draw his attention to a little bird on the top of the 

 nearest tree, repeating three or four times in suc- 

 cession notes so like tliose of the canary, that it 

 would be quite excusable to mistake tiiem. He 

 will then notice the producer of those sounds shoot 

 suddenly upwards, like a sky-rocket, to the height 

 of a hundred feet or more, flutter its wings like a 



wind-hovering kestrel, and so descend gently to the 

 top of another adjacent tree, uttering all the while 

 the softest cadence of half-notes it is possible to 

 imagine. After a short rest, there will be a repeti- 

 tion of the canary song, another successful ascent, 

 another quivering descent towards the top of the 

 first or some other tree hard by, ever warbling in 

 the most evident and wildest enjoyment its deli- 

 cious diminuendo cadence from the top of its flight 

 to the moment when it seizes the topmost twig of 

 the selected tree. Colonel Montagu says this bird 

 is rare in Cornwall, and Mr. Morris makes the same 

 remark, but both are evidently in error ; for in May 

 and June, in this neighbourhood, no other bird of 

 passage is so common, and certainly no other to be 

 compared to it for general interest. How long it 

 stays here I cannot tell, for it ceases singing the 

 end of June or beginning of July, and then I am 

 unable to distinguish it from the titlarks. Evidently 

 Alauda arborea is a much more appropriate name 

 for it than Alauda trimalis, as it frequents woody 

 and rich districts, and not crossways and downs, 

 like skylarks and titlarks. I hope every reader of 

 these remarks, who is not already familiar with this 

 bird, will make it a point of becoming so next hay- 

 season; the song and flight are so peculiar, that it 

 will be impossible to mistake it for any other. — 

 Joseph Brew, Nansladron, 



ViTRiNA pellucida. — Can this species with- 

 draw itself completely into its shell ? Our most 

 recent manual —Tate's "Land and Presh-water 

 Mollusks " — adopts the negative side, but without 

 giving any fact or authorities. Having consi- 

 derable doubts on the matter, I consulted such 

 works as I possess or have access to, and the fol- 

 lowing is the result. Our standard authority- 

 Mr. Jeffreys, in his "British Conchology "—writes, 

 "the whole of the body can be withdrawn into the 

 shell." MacGillivray, a careful and accurate ob- 

 server, in his " MoUusca of Aberdeenshire," says, 

 " when young, very active, and incapable of with- 

 drawing entirely within the shell ; but when full- 

 grown, as I have observed, it can withdraw itself 

 completely." In Reeves's "British Land and Presh- 

 water Mollusks," the author offers no opinion, but 

 adduces M. Moquin-Tandon in the affirmative ; and 

 Mr. Berkeley, " who has observed this moUusk with 

 great attention, and published its anatomy in the 

 "Zoological Journal," in the negative. We have 

 thus— Jefi'reys, MacGillivray, and Moquin-Tandon, 

 who consider that it can withdraw completely into 

 its shell, and Tate and Berkeley, who say that it 

 cannot ; the balance being decidedly on the affirma- 

 tive side. With the light of MacGillivray's obser- 

 vations before us, may not Messrs. Tate and 

 Berkeley have drawn their conclusions from imma- 

 ture specimens ? I oiler this as a possible solution 

 only. I will conclude with a note of a fact that 

 came under my own notice. Jn one of my coucho- 

 logical rambles in November, 1871, 1 met with half 

 a dozen very fine V. pellucida, which I put into a 

 chip box. On my return home the box was placed 

 on a sideboard in a room in which was a fire. 

 Opening the box a few hours later, I found each 

 animal iiad withdrawn into its shell, leaving the 

 latter adhering to the side of the box by a slight 

 film of mucus round the edge, as is the invariable 

 habit of the genus Helix and others under such 

 circumstances. But though able to retract com- 

 pletely into its shell, it cannot, seemingly, do so to 

 the same extreme extent as the generality of the 

 univalved mollusks, and leave a considerable space 



