Mat 1, 1867.] 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



103 



of swallows clinging to the timbers of the shaft, 

 seemingly asleep, and on flinging some gravel on 

 them, they just moved, but never attempted to fly 

 or change their place." The proverb " One swallow 

 does not make a summer," which is common to 

 almost every language, confirms the theory, since it 

 is more reasonable to consider the isolated swallows 

 seen on warm winter days to be members of the 

 hybernating portion of the tribe tempted by the 

 weather from their retreats, rather than as the fore- 

 runners of an immigration which often does not 

 occur for weeks or months afterwards. Numerous 

 cases have been adduced of lumps of torpid 

 swallows having been found under ice, and in the 

 mud-beds of lakes. Olaus Magnus, a Swedish 

 Archbishop, says, in a work published in 1555 : 

 "Erom the northern waters swallows are often 

 dragged up by fishermen in the form of clustered 

 masses, mouth to mouth, wing to wing, and foot to 

 foot, these having at the beginning of autumn 

 collected amongst the reeds previous to submer- 

 sion." And he goes onto say : " When young and 

 inexperienced fishermen find such clusters of 

 swallows, they will by thawing the birds at the fire 

 bring them indeed to the use of their wings, which 

 will continue but a very short time, as it is a pre- 

 mature and forced revival." Etmuller, a professor 

 at Leipsic, a century after, asserts that he found 

 " more than a bushel measure of swallows closely 

 clustered under the reeds of a fish-pond, under the 

 ice, all of them, to appearance, dead, but the heart 

 still pulsating." The English naturalist Derham 

 also cited in 1713, at a meeting of the Royal Society, 

 the personal testimony of a Dr. Colas, who asserted 

 just the same facts. Allowing for exaggeration, 

 it is quite possible that the swallows which be- 

 come torpid upon river banks should fall upon 

 the ice or amongst the reeds, and that the fact of 

 their being discovered, occasionally, in these po- 

 sitions, should have given rise to wild and visionary 

 tales. 



But it may' be said, All these are old wives', fables ; 

 have you no modern testimony to adduce ? In the 

 third volume of " Kingston's Magazine for Boys," 

 now defunct, on pages 267-S will be found a very 

 interesting communication from an anonymous 

 correspondent signing himself M. K., stating that 

 a friend of his father once found a bird-ball upon 

 the banks of the Ribble, which sprang into life upon 

 being placed near the fire. The pages of Science- 

 Gossip itself will also afford confirmatory evidence 

 of a very late date ; for this I beg to refer my 

 readers to pages IIS and 160 of vol. ii. In these 

 very recent statements of eye-witnesses almost 

 every one of the assertions of the old writers is 

 reiterated. On which side, then, I ask, lie the 

 credulity and ignorance ? On the side of those 

 who adapt science to suit facts, or with those who 

 disregard facts because they are old-fashioned, and 



do not accord with their preconceived and arbitrary 

 ideas of the laws which govern nature ? 



E. A. Allen. 



PROCESSES AND INFLATIONS IN 

 DIATOMS. 



FN the examination of diatoms it will be found 

 -*- that the double valves of those that have pro- 

 cesses have these processes situated alternately on 

 the valves. Thus in a double valve of Auliscus 

 Peruvianus, if, upon focusing for upper valve, the 

 two processes appear, one to the right and the 

 other to the left, then, upon focusing for the lower 

 valve, the processes of that valve will be seen, one 

 at the top, and the other at the bottom. 



This rule will be found to be of general applica- 

 tion, no matter what may be the number of the 

 processes. Again, in the diatoms that have infla- 

 tions, the same rule applies. Eor example, in the 

 Aulacodiscus formosus, of Upper Bolivian Guano, 

 the four large inflations of the upper valve are 

 alternate in position to those of the lower valve. 

 It follows, therefore, that in the multiplication of 

 these diatoms by duplicative subdivision, the raised 

 processes and inflations of one valve fall into the 

 hollows and depressions of the valve with which 

 they are in contact ; and thus there is an example 

 of that economy of space so frequently to be ob- 

 served in natural productions, and there is less 

 likelihood of the processes and inflations being 

 injured by the abrasion of their raised surfaces 

 against each other. 



As the above facts may have escaped the observa- 

 tion of some who are interested in the study of 

 diatoms, I have considered them worthy of a note 

 in Science-Gossip. 



Armagh. Lewis G. Mills, LL.B. 



A Leap fob, Liee. — I remember on one occasion, 

 how I saved myself, by a desperate manoeuvre, from 

 the jaws of a hungry trout. The savage brute 

 singled me out from among all the rest of the shoal, 

 and, hunting me round and round until I was well 

 nigh exhausted, was on the point of making me his 

 prey, when a bold and happy idea occurred to me : 

 springing out of the water, six inches or more upon 

 the dry shingle, I lay gasping and half dead with fear, 

 but out of reach of my enemy. The refraction of the 

 water enabled me to see him, though he could not 

 see me ; he beat up and down the spot at which I 

 had disappeared, with much the air of a retriever 

 puppy, when the squirrel he has chased for the first 

 time takes refuge in a tree. His search being in 

 vain, he retired, and I had just strength left to 

 squatter into the water again, and soon regained 

 my accustomed haunt beneath the stone. — Auto- 

 biography of a Salmon. 



