HA R D WICKE 'S S CI EN CE-GO SSIP. 



21 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



Locusts at Cheddar, Somerset. — Your cor- 

 respondent's (H. W. Livett) account of the locust 

 found at Wells, reminds me that while staying at 

 Cheddar last year (1S75), I was told that the year 

 before a large' numljer of locusts visited that village ; 

 and the villager who was my informant said that 

 they created great havoc among the vegetable produce 

 of his garden. His description exactly tallied with the 

 appearance of Pachytyhis migratorius, a specimen of 

 which is in my possession, and was sent to me from 

 Egypt by a relation. — Charles IVilliajyis, Redland. 



Fertilization of Flowers. — A little work on 

 bees which I read some time ago, states that bees 

 collect pollen only on flowers of the same species, 

 in order not to mix the pollen of different flowers 

 together, and I have several times observed this 

 statement as perfectly true during the time when 

 resedas, roses, and geraniums adorned a bed close 

 to a bee-hive. The same bee or humble-bee which 

 had been on a reseda would only visit resedas, 

 another only geraniums, &c. I quite agree with 

 A. B., Kelso, that this seems to point out a certain 

 law of nature which favours the more perfect fer- 

 tilization of flowers. — Blanche. 



Feeding Cuckoos. — In the volume of Science- 

 Gossip for 1874, I sent an account of a young 

 cuckoo, but I never saw anything in its way of 

 feeding different from usual. We used to feed it 

 two or three times a-day, from the time almost of 

 its birth till we lost it ; and the parent hen bird 

 used to come and feed it within two or three yards 

 of us. The cuckoo had a large mouth, and opened 

 it wide to be fed, but certainly never put out its 

 tongue to have the food placed upon.it. The parent 

 bird always put its beak in its mouth like any other 

 bird ; and the way in which it got on its back to feed 

 it when the cuckoo was sitting on the top of a post 

 was very amusing. The male bird would sometimes 

 feed it, but it always struck us as being somewhat afraid 

 of it.— ^. T. Scott. 



Death's-head Moth. — As none of your readers 

 answered this question in Science-Gossip for Octo- 

 ber, allow me to state that something of the same kind 

 occurred to me. Finding the caterpillar under a 

 potato-plant on the earth, I put it in a box containing 

 some cotton-wool which I had in my pocket. On 

 coming home I put the box down on the hall-table, 

 where it was left till next morning, when I wanted to 

 place the caterpillar in a larger box ; but, to my 

 surprise, I found it had used some of the cotton-wool 

 to make a kind of cocoon, glued firmly together, i 

 through which I could see the caterpillar lying stiff" 

 and motionless. After three more days the skin was 

 thrown off and the reddish-brown chrysalis appeared 

 in the cocoon. I suppose the caterpillar used the 

 cotton-wool because it could not bury itself in the 

 earth when the change of nature took place. — Little 

 Lambie, Cannes. 



Hedge-hogs and their Food. — I think I can 

 add some information to the article by Mr. Charles 

 W. Whistler, in the August number of SciENCE- 

 GossiP on the Hedge-hog. Asking a friend if he 

 could tell me anything about this animal, he related 

 to me the following story : — A farmer here having an 

 order for some apples, ordered his men to pick them, 

 put them together in a heap, cover them with some 

 sti'aw, and leave them to be packed the next morning. 

 Coming the next day to pack them, they found but 

 few, and could not find the thief. About a week 



after they were stopping a ditch which divided two 

 fields. The men found a heap of straw ; removing 

 the straw they found a quantity of apples, and further 

 on found quite as many potatoes ; besides this they 

 caught several hedge-hogs. These were supposed to 

 be the thieves, for they were seen afterwards rolling 

 themselves over, and the apples stuck on their skin. 

 —y. W. Mee. 



Skeletonizing of Starfish. — Being once de- 

 sirous of obtaining the skeletons of some of these 

 creatures, I adopted the plan usual with vertebrates, 

 viz., simple maceration in water; and both those I 

 thus treated came out well, one of them being still in 

 my possession. The water should not be changed 

 too often, and the skeleton should be removed when 

 the flesh is sufficiently rotten to be washed away by 

 the current of water from a tap. — David A. King. 



Sparrow-hawk and Crow. —Whilst shooting 

 one day in September last I saw a crow chasing a 

 hawk. The hawk settled once, but on rising was 

 again pursued by the crow ; they finally disappeared 

 over a brow. My companion told me this was of 

 common occurrence. — David A. King. 



Seeds Digesting.— W. G. P., in his paper on 

 the Mistletoe, rather seems to uphold the idea that 

 seeds swallowed whole will digest. I thought it 

 was perfectly well known that this is not the case, 

 but that uncooked and unbroken seeds always pass 

 unaltered. — E. T. Scott. 



An Unidentified Bird. — A short time since I 

 purchased of a young Arab a little bird of the finch 

 family, but which I had never before seen nor read a 

 description of. I am convinced that it is no native of 

 these parts of Syria, nor yet a regular passing visitant. 

 The bird is about 44 inches long, of a warm cin- 

 namon-brown, with black head and neck, and some 

 black about the vent. The bill is similar in shape to 

 that of a bullfinch, and of a light leaden-blue colour ; 

 the tail is rather short in proportion to the body. 

 This bird tries to sing, but does not produce any 

 sound until near the close of his effort, when an 

 attentive listener may hear a few very sweet notes, 

 resembling those of a canary-bird. Can any one 

 inform me what this bird's name is, and where a 

 description of him may be found ; also, whether 

 there is any reasonable hope that his voice may yet 

 "come out"? — W. T. Van Dye A, Bey rant, Syria. 



VoLVOX Globator. — I endeavoured last season 

 to renew my acquaintance with the above, but en- 

 tirely without success, as I have not been able to 

 obtain one single specimen. I do not think that the 

 absence of the Volvox from the different ponds which 

 I have explored in'the neighbourhoods of Finchley, 

 Hampstead, Hornsey, &c., can be attributed to the 

 voracity of Rotifera, unless the latter have been 

 exceptionally prolific this summer under the influence 

 of the extraordinarily hot weather. I am more inclined 

 to think it is owing to the increase of building ope- 

 rations, whereby the virgin ponds become either 

 disturbed or impregnated with alkaline and other 

 matter, that we experience difficulty in finding the 

 favourites we could so easily procure a few years ago. 

 I have indeed had to give up whole days recently 

 "out of town" in the endeavour to obtain a few 

 objects worthy of investigation. As regards the 

 caddis worms (of which I have collected some extra- 

 ordinary specimens this year), I think they are not 

 injurious, to any great extent, except to the plants to 

 which they attach themselves ; and as their micro- 

 scopic value is of itself microscopic, I would suggest 

 the advisability of dispensing with their presence in 



