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HARDWICKE'S SCIEN CE-GOS SIP. 



Akabis sTRici'A. — Mr. Barriugton-Ward records 

 the'^abundant growth of this rare Bristol plant on 

 tlie Clifton side of the Avon, where it has been sup- 

 posed extinct. He has very wisely said nothing 

 about it until the fructification was over. It was in 

 Leigh Woods that the plant was found so plentiful. 



Commerce in Pollen. — A curious trade has 

 recently sprung up, in a demand for pollen to 

 fructify certain plants. The Palm tribe, the Cyca. 

 dacea, and other greenhouse trees, will flourish 

 without producing stamens, and, for want of pol- 

 len, will not fruit. It is therefore now becoming 

 common to see advertisements for the pollen, for 

 example, of the Caryota urens, and other tropical 

 plants, and it is received through the post. 



The Eloka of Liverpool. — We are glad to see 

 the really useful work which many of our leading 

 provincial societies are achieving, in tabulating the 

 fauna and flora of their respective neighbourhoods. 

 The Liverpool Naturalists' Field Club has for many 

 years taken a leading part in tiius working up local 

 subjects. The last issue of this work is a handsome 

 volume on the flora of the neighbourhood, giving a 

 list of the indigenous flowering plants and ferns 

 growing within fifteen miles of the Liverpool Ex- 

 change and two miles of Southport. The latter 

 town is brought in on account of its being a favourite 

 resort for Liverpool botanists. The arrangement 

 adopted in the orders, genera, and species is that 

 of Mr. Syme, in the third edition of Sowerby's 

 "English Botany" (London, Hardwicke). Among 

 the chief workers we find the names of Messrs. 

 T. B. Hall, Tudor, H. C. Watson, A. Stuart, 

 Armistead, Slack, Sliepherd, and Miss Potts. 

 Among the plants whose loss, consequent on the 

 extension of Liverpool, is mourned, are Vacc.inium 

 Vitis Idcea and Convallaria majalis. 



Poisonous Fungi. — lu view of the recent fatal 

 accidents through eating poisonous fungi, the Field 

 recommends the coloured charts of edible and poi- 

 sonous species, published by Hardwicke, 192, Picca- 

 dilly, as the best precaution against the mistake so 

 often made by people unacquainted with the distinc- 

 tion between them. Besides the three boys who 

 died a few days ago at Catton, near Norwich, a 

 lamily of seven people are said to have since then 

 been poisoned in a similar manner at Mylar, near 

 Falmouth. These charts should be exhibited in 

 schoolrooms or other places of resort. 



ZOOLOGY. 



Coluber Austriacus {ante, p. 208).— The fol- 

 lowing extract from "The New Forest," by 

 J. B. Wise (p. 259, note), may interest Canon 

 Kingsley and others of your readers : — " I must not 

 forget to mention Coronella Icevis (Boie), which is 



found in the Forest, as also in Dorsetshire and 

 Kent. This is the Coronella austriaca of Laurenti, 

 and afterwards the Coluber ItEvis of Lacipede. It 

 might be mistaken for the common viper {Pelias 

 verus), but differs in not being venomous, as also 

 from the ringed snake {Natrix torquata) in having 

 a fang at the hinder extremity of its jaws ; the 

 peculiarity of the genus Coronella. It feeds on 

 lizards, which its fang enables it to hold ; drinks a 

 great deal of water ; and Dr. Giinther, of the British 

 Museum, to whom 1 am indebted for the above 

 information, tells me that it crawls up the furze and 

 low bushes to lick the raiu off the leaves." I am 

 almost sure that a snake I saw, in September, 1S71, 

 in some dried-up boggy ground between Lyndhurst 

 and Christchurch, in the New Forest, was this 

 species. — Fred. I. Warner. 



Books on the British Fau.va, and Notes on 

 Common Animals. — Systematic works on zoology 

 do not always answer our expectations, either from 

 their having been written rather by literary men 

 than by field-naturalists, or by authors, who, though 

 excellent zoologists, have been mostly domiciled in 

 London. Yarrell, for instance, is deficient in his 

 accounts of the notes of the feathered tribe, though 

 much might have been told by description, and in 

 some cases still more, as in the case of the Yellow 

 Bunting or the Willow Wren, by the usual musical 

 notes and signs. He says little of the charac- 

 teristic notes of the different species of the Thrush 

 tribe. There is also a good deal relating to our 

 British Mammalia not to be found in Mr. Bell's 

 otherwise interesting book. Two or three years back 

 we came across a strange variety of the common 

 Shrew. It was perfectly naked, excepting a few hairs 

 on the tail ; it appeared quite free from cutaneous or 

 other disease, but, like its kindred in general, was 

 intolerant of fasting ; for when it had remained 

 about eight hours in a botany-box I found it dead. 

 The common wild rabbit, when it burrows in fields 

 or gardens, and gives birth to young ones, takes 

 care in the daytime to stop up the mouth of the 

 burrow by scratching the soil or sand over it, to be 

 opened again at night for its entry. Bell, in his 

 description of the larger sheep — or drover's — dog, 

 does not notice that the iris of its eye shows the 

 same tendency as the dappled skin, having a de- 

 ficiency of pigment in places, so as to give it a wall- 

 eyed appearance. Again, squiirels have a wonderful 

 power of attracting their fellows from a distance, 

 perhaps explicable from their shrill voice and acute 

 hearing. Besides the food mentioned by Bell, they 

 eat the seeds of the fir and also fungi. 1 think the 

 Dormouse gnaws the kernels of the laurel-berries, 

 but seldom finishes one. There appear to be 

 varieties of several of our British quadrupeds, 

 suggestive of further examination — of the Badger, 

 Otter, and land and water Vole for instance, the last 



