HARD WICKE 'S SCIENCE - GOSSIP. 



91 



geology and palasontology of New Zealand ; and the 

 Bigsby medal was presented to Professor Marsh, of 

 the United States, for his labours in American 

 geology. The proceeds of the Wollaston fund were 

 awarded to Mr. R. Etheridge, jun. ; those of the 

 Murchison fund to the Rev. J. F. Blake ; and of the 

 Lyell fund to Mr. William Pengelly. In each case 

 the honour has been well and worthily won. 



Geology of the Planet Mars. — In the Gco- 

 Jogical Magazine for March there appears a paper by 

 Mr. Edward Carpenter, M.A., on "Evidences 

 afforded by the Planet Mars on the subject of Glacial 

 Periods." He holds that the present condition of 

 Mais is in favour of the view held by Mr. Murphy 

 and others as to the cause of the earth's last glacial 

 period. The same journal has another excellent 

 paper on " A Permian fauna, associated with a 

 carboniferous flora, in the uppermost portion of the 

 coal formation of Bohemia. " 



Geology of Herefordshire. — We have re- 

 ceived a copy of a paper reprinted from the Trans- 

 actions of the Watford Natural Histoiy Society, by 

 Mr. W. Whitaker, F.G.S., of the Geological Sur- 

 vey, giving a very complete list of works on the 

 geology of Herefordshire. Mr. Whitaker is well 

 known for his knowledge of geological literature, and 

 his services seem to be at the command of nearly all 

 our provincial societies. 



The Cause of Activity in Earthquakes 

 AND Volcanoes," by Mr. R. A. Peacock, C.E., 

 F.G.S. — A thoughtful pamphlet on the above sub- 

 ject has just been published by G. E. & F. N. Spon, 

 in which it is argued that steam is their active cause, 

 whilst heat, produced by the crushing of rocks (Mr. 

 Mallet's theory), is not. 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



Early Primroses. — For the last four years we 

 have resided at a small village in Hampshire, about 

 twelve miles from Winchester, and each year we 

 have found primroses in flower out of doors before 

 Christmas. The place where they bloom first is on 

 ground where a copse has stood, which was cut down 

 the previous year. Snowdrops growing in the woods 

 were also in flower the first week in January this 

 year.— .-f . J. V., West Meon. 



Water - Tortoises, and \vhat they Eat. — 

 Some time since, wishing to procure two water- 

 tortoises for a friend, I applied to a person in the 

 neighbouring city, of whom I had frequently bought 

 gold and other fish for my aquaria, to know if he 

 could supply them. His answer was, "Oh, no! I 

 do not keep them. I did so once ; but they always 

 died after I had them a few months." I asked, 

 "How did you feed them?" He replied, " I did 

 not feed them at all ; I did not think they required 

 feeding." Lest any of your readers should entertain 

 the same opinion, I venture, in the interest of the 

 poor animals, to give you my experience during two 

 years. In the early spring of 1875 I purchased, in 



Covent Garden Market, two water-tortoises ; the 

 carapace of one measured 3^ inches in length, tliat 

 of the other 2J- inches. (At the present time they 

 measure 4 inches and 3 inches respectively. ) Never 

 having kept them before, I scarcely knew what food 

 to give them ; but, upon trying them with earth- 

 worms, and finding they ate them with avidity, I 

 supplied them through the summer with worms, occa- 

 sionally varied with slugs, woodlice, and blue-bottle 

 flies ; of the latter they seemed to be remarkably 

 fond. During their hybernation last winter, they rarely 

 ate anything ; scarcely ever coming above water ; in 

 the spring of 1876, soon after coming to their appetite, 

 and still thin and poor from their long fast. One 

 morning, on going into the conservatory in which 

 their tank is placed, I discovered a sparrow, which 

 had got in through an open window, and in its efforts 

 to escape had fallen into the tank upon a piece of 

 rock, in the centre of which the two tortoises were bask- 

 ing in the sun. Before I had time to take the sparrow 

 out of the water, the larger tortoise had slipped from 

 off the rock, caught it by one of its legs, and held it 

 so, until it was drowned. I now left it for two hours, 

 and upon my return found nothing visible of the bird 

 but its cleanly picked bones and its wing-feathers, — all 

 else had been devoured. After this I could not tempt 

 them to eat, not even Avith their favourite food, a meat- 

 fly, for nearly a week. I now thought I would try 

 them with another kind of food, and gave them a 

 gold-fish about 5 inches in length, that had jumped 

 out of an aquarium in the night, and so died. This 

 they ate eagerly, and left nothing but the head and 

 backbone. A week or ten days after this I dropped 

 from a trap upon their rock a live mouse : this the 

 larger tortoise no sooner discovered than he gave 

 chase, mounting the rock, and the mouse taking to 

 the water, here soon became nearly exhausted, and 

 soon clung to the rock. The tortoise now warily 

 approached him, made a grab at his head, and held 

 him under water until he was dead. He now, after 

 tearing off the head, turned the skin of the mouse 

 inside out, being unable to tear it, and in two or three 

 hours ate the whole except the skin and bones. Dur- 

 ing the course of the present summer they have eaten 

 in addition five other mice. The consequences itre 

 that they are in capital condition, and the brightness 

 of their colouring is such that they are not like the 

 same creatures I bought two years ago. — George N. 

 Hams, Clifton, Bristol. 



Peregrine Falcon. — Mr. J- W. Dealy, in his 

 article on the " Peregrine Falcon"" (Science-Gossip, 

 p. 53), speaks of the so-called Falco anatnin as iden- 

 tical with F. pei-egrimis ; he also gives the reasons on 

 which he bases his opinion. I have just been looking 

 through the splendid series of peregrines from all 

 parts of the world in the Norwich Museum, and al- 

 though the American race differs slightly from those 

 of Europe and Asia, I confess that were the labels 

 removed I should be utterly unable to distinguish one 

 from the other. Mr. Gould certainly includes F. 

 atiatum amongst the birds closely allied to F. pere- 

 grinus, and which, " although closely resembling 

 each other, possess distinctive characteristics, and 

 have rightly [he thinks] been regarded as so many 

 different species " ; but most modern ornithologists, 

 including Dresser, Newton, and Gumey, think other- 

 wise, and regard the "Duck Hawk" as a local race 

 of F. peregrinus. As to Mr. Dealy 's reasons for his 

 faith, I do not think size is to be depended upon. In 

 a series from American and European localities, birds 

 could, I believe, be found which would not differ 

 perceptibly from each other. Wilson says that the 

 Duck-Hawk never carries off" its prey, but permits 



