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HABDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



[Mat 1,1867. 



JUVENILE MUSEUMS. 



THE paragraph in the March number of Science 

 Gossip, extracted from " Town Talk " in Fun, 

 suggested to me the importance of adopting means 

 to encourage young persons in various localities to 

 make collections of natural objects, and the result 

 is that I propose to arrange for offering prizes to 

 the young people of both sexes in Northumberland 

 and Durham for the best collections in the following 

 departments ; the prizes to be awarded in the 

 month of October. I intend that four prizes shall 

 be given in each of the following departments of 

 Natural History and Botany. 



1st prize, any scientific instrument of the value 

 of £1 ; 2nd prize, ditto, 10s. ; 3rd prize, ditto, 6s. ; 

 4th prize, ditto, 4s. 



Department I. — The best collections of marine 

 and freshwater algae, prepared, mounted, and classi- 

 fied. 



Department II. — The best collections of marine 

 and freshwater shells, prepared and classified. 



Department III. — The best collections of ferns 

 and wild flowers, dried, mounted, and classified. 



Department IV. — The best collections of fossils 

 from limestone, the coal measures, and clay slate, 

 named and classified. 



Department V. — The best collections of butter- 

 flies and moths, mounted and classified. 



The conditions to be — 



I. — That each boy or girl competing shall not 

 be more than 16 years of age. 



II. — That they shall themselves gather the objects 

 exhibited in competition. 



III. — That all the objects exhibited be accom- 

 panied by a document, stating when, where, and by 

 whom the objects were found. 



IV. — Any competitor may compete in any one or 

 in all departments. 



V. — That all objects exhibited in competition be 

 gathered during the present year. 



VI. — Competent adjudicators to be appointed for 

 each department. 



VII. — AH objects exhibited to be obtained within 

 the area of Northumberland and Durham, or off 

 their coasts. 



VIII. — Each competitor to arrange his or her 

 objects in cases, which will be provided for the 

 purpose in the Museum of the Natural History 

 Society, or other convenient room. 



IX. — All intending competitors to enrol their 

 names before the end of May. 



As it is desirable to discourage as much as pos- 

 sible the tendency to injure small birds, no prizes 

 will be given for collections of birds' eggs. 



I throw out these general suggestions in order 

 that gentlemen in other parts of the kingdom inte- 

 rested in the spread of a love for Natural History 



among young persons may adopt such measures for 

 interesting them as may be adapted to their re- 

 spective localities. It is intended to prepare and 

 print a prospectus of this project for general circu- 

 lation in this neighbourhood, and any reader of 

 Science-Gossip who will forward me an addressed 

 and stamped envelope shall receive a copy of the 

 prospectus by return of post. 

 Newcastle-on-Tyne. T. P. Barkas. 



THE CHIGNON EUNGUS. 



IVrOTHING could more clearly have shown the 

 - 1 -* amount of ignorance of the natural history 

 of minute life abroad amongst the public, and the 

 little trouble people will take to make the most 

 trivial use of their common sense, when a novelty, 

 embellished by plausible description, is presented 

 to them, than the rampant nonsense which has been 

 penned and believed in regard to the so-called 

 gregarinee infesting certain varieties of false hair. 

 The "chignon controversy" has been one of the 

 most widespread but at the same time transient 

 sensations of the age : started abroad, it soon reached 

 England, where it bewildered the fashion worshippers 

 of the day. The immediate cause of this hubbub was 

 the appearance in the Hamburg paper I)er Freischiitz, 

 of the 7th of February, 1867, of an article based upon 

 the account given in the "Archiv. der Gericht. 

 Medicin und Hygienie," and in which we are in- 

 formed that " Mr. Lindemann professes to have dis- 

 covered and observed a new microscopical parasite, 

 to which he has given the name of Gregarine. He 

 reports, according to his observations, that the 

 gregarine — a protozoic animalcule — is of the lowest 

 order of development of the animal organism, and 

 is found parasitically within the animal and human 

 body, where it floats about with the blood, by which 

 it is nourished. The most striking instance of the 

 parasitism of the gregarine is said to be its existence 

 on the human hair. The gregarinous hair, however 

 differs in no [way from the sound hair. Only if 

 one looks very closely, little dark brown knots, 

 which are generally at the free end of the hair, 

 may be distinguished even with the naked eye. 

 Those are gregarines. Out of thirty samples of 

 hair procured from a hairdresser iu Nislmi 

 Novgorod, gregarines were found in seventy-five 

 per cent. And it is well known that the hair used 

 for the chignons of the better half of Russia is 

 bought of the poor peasant women, who are 

 proverbially of dirty habits. Pursuing his inquiry, 

 Mr. Lindemann has discovered that almost every 

 louse has in its interior an enormous number of 

 gregarines, and he convinced himself by further 

 experiments that the gregarines on the human 

 hair are deposited there by lice. He observes 

 that the most favourable conditions for the growth 



