7° 



HARD WICKE'S SCIENCE - G OSSIP. 



(opposite Labrador) 200 tons of the supposed gold 

 ore were discovered and put on board ; but on tlie 

 return the cargo proved a sadly disappointing one. 

 From the accompanying extract, the Americans appear 

 to have rediscovered this " mine," which proves to be 

 of viica, and not of gold, as poor Frobisher and the 

 London gold-finers imagined ; so that Frobisher's 

 discovery is at last turned to practical account._ The 

 brilliant appearance of mica might well deceive the 

 somewhat credulous Jack Tars of the sixteenth cen- 

 tury, Avho took the Esquimaux for "porpoises" or 

 "strange fish" when they first saw them in their 

 "kajaks" (or canoes), and let one old woman go (to 

 her great delight no doubt) as a "devil or witch" ; 

 but how the Cockney gold-finers came to mistake mica 

 for gold is indeed a cnix, and shows the necessity for 

 a little "technical education" in these matters. — 

 Francis A. Allen. 



Black and White Crows (?). — I fancy the bird 

 seen by your correspondent, F. M. C. Whittaker, and 

 described by him as a black and white crovy, is a 

 stray specimen of the Nutcracker Crow, a bird of 

 rare appearance in the country, and which answers 

 the description given, as to plumage ; though the 

 description of its habits, as given in Wood's 

 Natural History, hardly agrees with those given by your 

 correspondent. The following is the description of 

 the bird as given by the authority referred to : — 

 " The Nutcracker Crow, whose true position in the 

 scale of creation has so long bewildered naturalists, 

 is about the size of a jackdaw, but its form is more 

 slender, and the tail is longer. It is seldom found in 

 this country, but is very common in more northern dis- 

 tricts. In its habits it displays a singular mixture of 

 the Woodpecker and the Nuthatch, and exhibits so 

 few of the well-known habits of the Crows, that 

 observers might well be perplexed where to place it. 

 It is now supposed to be a connecting link between 

 the Crows and the Woodpeckers. It runs about the 

 branches of trees, using its tail for a support, and 

 pecks away the bark, in order to reach the insects 

 beneath. It also pecks open the fir cones, in search 

 of the hidden seed, and breaks nuts by repeated 

 strokes of its bill like the Nuthatch. It is usually seen 

 in flocks, but is not so wary as the Crows." From 

 the above it will be seen that the habits of the Nut- 

 cracker Crow are very dissimilar to those of the bird 

 seen ; but from the engraving of the bird, given in 

 the above work, I fancy they are identical, the Nut- 

 cracker being speckled something after the manner of 

 a starling. — Jos. Laing. 



The New Insectivorous Plant {sec January 

 Science-Gossip, page 18). —Your correspondent 

 Mr. Brittain will find a good figure and description 

 of Apocynaiii androsaemifolium, and the mode sug- 

 gested by which the flower retains the insect entrapped, 

 in the 8th vol. of Curtis's Botanical Magazine, plate 

 280, published November, 1791. — F. B., Staines. 



Crocuses Changing Colour in the Shade. 

 — The influence of light, heat, and soil on the colour- 

 ing of all plants being very great, I have no doubt but 

 that these three causes combined worked the change 

 of hue A. E. Worcester describes as having taken 

 place in his crocuses. Every vegetable that grows in 

 the shade is pale, but the more plants are exposed to 

 the light the greater the amount of brilliant colouring 

 they actiuire. Colour, say sap green, in plants 

 is said to arise from their nitrogen, red from their 

 oxygen, and blue from their hydrogen character ; there- 

 fore some chemical combinations must, I conclude, 

 take place between the fluids or gases of plants (I do 

 not know the correct term) and the colouring proper- 



ties of light. There are three rays (colours) in a 

 beam of light, — red, blue, and yellow, and according 

 to the ray or rays reflected by the flower, so will be 

 its colour. Parts of the colours or rays in a beam of 

 light get absorbed in the body or flower on which 

 the beam falls, and parts get thrown back ; reflected, 

 they enter the eye of the gazer, and fix the colour of 

 the flower. The power certain plants have of absorb- 

 ing light depends on their chemical constitution ; so 

 when a flower changes hue, its constitution has under- 

 gone a chemical change, and this change may be 

 effected by soil. — //. E. Watney. 



"Vestiges of the Natural History of 

 Creation." — Respecting the unknown authorship 

 of the above work, mentioned in your "Notices to 

 Correspondents," the following passage may not be 

 uninteresting to your readers, which appears in the 

 "History of Booksellers," showing that the late 

 Robert Chambers, of Edinburgh (whose earliest 

 essays, published in his Journal, had been upon geo- 

 logy ; and to this branch of science, it is said, he 

 became more and more addicted), if not the author, 

 must at least have taken a very prominent part in its 

 production: — " // tvas known that the proof-sheets 

 passed the hands of Mr. Robert Chambers ; and on 

 no better authority than this, not only did the public 

 believe the story, but the ' Vestiges ' was entered in 

 the Catalogue of the British Museum under his name. 

 A writer in the Critic boldly stated, ' on eminent 

 authority,' that George Combe was the author; and 

 though this was contradicted, and though the author- 

 ship is still a mystery, it would appear that Combe 

 had, at all events, something to do with the work. 

 In 1848 Robert Chambers was selected to be Lord 

 Provost of Edinburgh ; he was requested to deny 

 the authorship, but his refusal to plead, and his con- 

 sequent retirement, were probably due to his contempt 

 for people who could make the authorship of a book 

 a barrier to civic honours." Taking the above state- 

 ments as correct, I think we may infer that either 

 Combe or Chambers was the author, though it will 

 not allow us to fix with certainty on either. — H. G. 



[The recently published "Life of Robert Cham- 

 bers," by his brother, has, we believe, no mention of 

 the authorship of this work.— Ed. S. G.] 



Early Primroses and other Flowers. — In 

 reply to C. W. H. Chelmsford's observations, I 

 write to say that, at the date he gives (the ist of 

 January), primroses were out in full bloom all around 

 Hockley, and that tufts of buds had been daily ex- 

 panding in the hedge of this garden for some time 

 previously. I gathered, on the shortest day in the 

 year, quite a pretty nosegay, composed of primroses, 

 violets, monthly roses, periwinkles, and the exqui- 

 sitely perfumed flowers of the Cliimonanthusfragrans. 

 The Blackthorn has been in bloom, in a rather 

 sheltered hedge near the village, for the last three 

 weeks ; and an oxlip, one solitary specimen, has 

 likewise put in a claim for our admiration. Snow- 

 drops and crocuses have also come out. — Helen E. 

 WatJiey, Bei-ry-givve, Liss, Hants. 



Early Primroses. — It may interest some of the 



readers of Science-Gossit that common prim- 



i roses were in full flower in Beaumaris, N. Wales, fully 



I six weeks ago, and other plants are equally forward. — 



J. S. Riches. 



Early Primroses, &c. (p. 45). — In the neigh- 

 bourhood of Watford primroses have been in flower 

 here and there nearly all through the winter, and 

 from the middle of January the Hawthorn has been in 



