212 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE- GOSSIP. 



[Sept. 1, 1867. 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



Gkeat Grey Shrike. — Observing something 

 unusual about a bird the other day flying across the 

 garden, curiosity prompted me to watch its move- 

 ments. It pounced down upon a young bird aud 

 carried it away to a plum-tree ; I approached cau- 

 tiously, and perceived at once that the strange bird 

 was the larger Shrike ; it was mangling and tearing 

 the bird it had caught like a carnivorous animal. 

 Is this the bird's habit, as I never saw the like be- 

 fore ? — H. Morgan. 



Mr. Thomas Fenton, preserver of animals in 

 Edinburgh, informs me that eight years ago, being 

 out with a young man, Francis Dick, about half a 

 mile to the north of Dundee, he was surprised to see 

 a grey Butcher-bird fly out of a hedge with a bird 

 dangling in its talons. His companion shot at but 

 missed it, on which it flew to some distance, and 

 alighted in a field, when they succeeded in shooting 

 it. — Macgillivray's Birch. 



Cockroaches. — In answer to "J. G.," cock- 

 roaches may be much thinned, if not exterminated, 

 by pouring a small quantity of common creosote (a 

 gallon may be had at a gasworks for 6c/.) into the 

 crevices and about the places in which they usually 

 appear. I think if a number of neighbours used it, 

 the effect would be to clear the neighbourhood, and 

 the only disadvantage is a healthy smell of coal tar. 

 — Thomas Dunn. 



The Rattlesnake. — I never once saw the rattle- 

 snake attempt to spring at, or attack either man, 

 dog, or horse. I have, again and again, teased a 

 large rattlesnake with a twig, but never succeeded 

 in provokiug it to attack me. It is very sluggish 

 in all its movements, and remarkably fond of creep- 

 ing in the dust. — Lord's Naturalist In Vancouver. 



The papers have recently recorded an instance of 

 a rattlesnake which had escaped from confinement 

 in a menagerie at Tunbridge Wells, attacking and 

 killing a horse and a buffalo. The circumstances 

 have been so fully detailed and widely circulated, 

 that we need not repeat them. What reason can 

 be assigned for this difference in the behaviour of 

 rattlesnakes at home and abroad ?—C. M. 



To drill Glass.— Dr. Lunge gives the following 

 method. It is simply the employment of dilute 

 sulphuric acid ; and he found it , on trial, to answer 

 much better thau the method referred to. Not 

 only, it appears, is the efficacy of the cutting tool 

 more increased by sulphuric acid than by oil of 

 turpentine, but also, strauge as it seems, the tools 

 (liles, drills, &c.) are far less rapidly destroyed by 

 being used with the acid than with the oil. He 

 also found it stated that, in the engineering esta- 

 blishment of Mr. Pintus, at Berlin, glass castings 

 for pump barrels, &c, were drilled, planed, and 

 bored, just like iron ones, and iu the same lathes 

 and machines, by the aid of sulphuric acid. As to 

 drilling, Dr. Lunge can fully testify to the efficacy 

 of that method. Whenever he wants, say, a hole 

 in the side of a bottle, he sends it, along with some 

 dilute (1 : 5) sulphuric acid, to the blacksmith, who 

 drills in it, with a hand-brace, a hole of i-inch 

 diameter. This hole is theu widened to the 

 required size by means of a triangular or round 

 file, again wetted with the acid. He also finds a 

 great help in the latter when makiug graduations 

 sn litre-flasks, &c. There is hardly any smell 



perceptible during the work, which proves how 

 little the acid acts upon the tools, undoubtedly 

 owing to their being tempered ; but each time after 

 use, he takes the precaution to wash and dry the 

 files at once, and he has so far observed no sensible 

 deterioration in them. 



Tjmeer-Borers. — The timber-boring insect, 

 Tomicus monographus, has recently been introduced 

 into Australia, where it seems to have been pre- 

 viously unknown. It is a most destructive creature, 

 which seems to prey on casks and barrels with a 

 voracity almost unequalled in the class to which it 

 belongs. The T. typographus, a species more familiar 

 to entomologists, is said to have destroyed no less 

 than a million and a half of pines in the Hartz 

 forest in the year 1783. An AustraUan paper gives 

 the following description of this species^ and of its 

 ravages among the casks in some of the local 

 breweries. The proboscis forms an excellent gimlet, 

 with which the little insect penetrates the hardest 

 wood in an incredibly short time, while the hinder 

 portion is shaped like a shovel, and is employed in 

 getting rid of the sawdust. They make clean holes 

 through the staves ; and some of the full barrels 

 are leaking in fifty places. In a wine-cellar, 

 thousands burrow into the wine and spirit casks. 

 As soon as they get nearly through the wood, the 

 liquor begins to ooze out, and the animal, of course, 

 gets killed. Every description of box or barrel is 

 full of them, also the doors and timber in the 

 building. Almost every store in the township is 

 infested with these mischievous insects. The head 

 is red, with a proboscis somewhat resembling a 

 parrot's bill ; and the body is like a small black 

 glass bugle broken off at the end ; the whole length, 

 a quarter of an inch. — Pop. Set. Review. 



Writing the words "Rural 

 reminds me of an amusing 



Leaf -Miners. 

 Natural History 



circumstance connected with the Bramble Leaf 

 miner, described in Mr. Stainton's most charming 

 article on Leaf-mining Larva in Science-Gossip for 

 July. I fancy the larva of this moth must have been 

 unusually abundant the particular year I allude to ; 

 for all the bramble leaves for miles round were what 

 the country people called " snake-marked" and you 

 will scarcely credit the alarm excited by these 

 " signs." It is a fact, 1 assure you, numberless poor 

 persons, and some educated people who ought to 

 have been better informed, deemed these marks on 

 the bramble leaves to be a "sign" that the end of 

 the world was at hand. Some years have elapsed, 

 but to this day they think iu the part of Wales 

 I am alluding to, that if the bramble leaves are 

 marked there will be much sickness. — Helen E. 

 Watney. 



Cats' Hair and Electric Sparks.— A black 

 cat is the best to experiment upon, and do it in the 

 dark, or at any rate iu the dusk. It was a favourite 

 diversion of mine when a girl. I wonder now that 

 my old pet cat's hair did not stand on end, so 

 continually did I brush it the wrong way. — Helen 

 E. Watney. 



Baby Hydrophilus.— "L. II. F." must give the 

 larvae small slugs and snails. They will not, I think, 

 touch water-plants. They require molluscs ; and, 

 strange to relate, will break their shells adroitly. 

 They make a sort of rest or table of their own 

 backs, and bend their heads over in the most extra- 

 ordinary way. — Helen E. Watney. 



