HARD WI CKE 'S S CIENCE -GOSS IP. 



225 



CANADIAN "NOTES." 



I HAVE been looking over, with considerable 

 interest, the back numbers, for the current year, 

 of your Science-Gossip, which I have just received: 

 and it occurs to me that perhaps a few occasional 

 notes from our distant colony, on various subjects 

 comprised therein, may not prove altogether un- 

 acceptable to your readers. 



No. I., p. II. An Article on Trilobitcs, &c. 

 We have a number of remarkably fine specimens in 

 the Trenton limestone of the county of Peterboro'. 

 One which I found I took to Professor Chapman, of the 

 University of Toronto, for identification. He assured 

 me that it was a new species, i.e., new to his ex- 

 perienced eye. He named it Asaphiis Halli after 

 Professor Hall. 



It would occupy too much of your space were I to 

 describe it minutely : suffice it to say that it differs, 

 in some respects, from all others previously examined : 

 e.g., by "its dSy\A^& glabella, and by the presence of 

 furrows on its pygidiiuii'" ; by " its thorax and pygi- 

 dium being of equal length," &c. It is a broad oval 

 in shape : total length five inches. 



P. 18. "Another insectivorous plant." 

 The Apocymim androscBmifolium is a member of 

 the Dogbane family, of which family America pos- 

 sesses, I believe, but \}o.\Qe. genera ; viz., Amsonia, 

 Forsteronia, and Apocynum. The A. androscrmi- 

 folium \s the " Spreading Dogbane," and common 

 enough with us. The corolla is of a pale rose- 

 colour. 



I was not aware of the peculiarity alluded to by your 

 correspondent, Thomas Brittain ; but the juice of all 

 these plants is poisonous, being, in fact, strychnia. 

 P. 23. " The Cuckoo." 



We also have a bird in Canada, the " Cow Bunt- 

 ing," Emberiza pecoris, the female of which invariably 

 lays her eggs in the nest of some small bird, of a 

 species different from her own. 



Not long ago I found, in my own garden, the nest 

 of a "chipping sparrow," Fringilla socialis, con- 

 taining, in addition to her own eggs, one laid by a 

 cow bunting. 



The American Cuckoos make nests of their own, 

 in which they lay their eggs. I have seen the flat, 

 rough nest of a "black-billed cuckoo," Cucidits ay- 

 throphthalmus, with the female sitting on her eggs. 



No. II., p. 42. " Our American Cousin, the 

 Robin." 



Your correspondent Apis gives correctly the scien- 

 tific name of this bird, Turdiis migratoriiis, which 

 should have told him that our Robin is in fact a 

 thrush. It is not in a7iy point similar to the English 

 "redbreast," save only in the colour of its breast, 

 which, however, is more of a dark orange than of a 

 red colour. It has not a " chocolate-coloured dress," 

 its prevailing upper tint being ash with black mark- 



ings. It is at least nine inches in length. At the 

 present moment several of them are running over my 

 lawn in quest of worms. 



Like its English congener, the Missel-Thrush, the 

 American Robin perches, in showery weather, upon 

 the topmost branch of a tree, and carols forth it^ 

 wildest notes. Before migrating, we see numbers of 

 them upon the Mountain Ash trees, literally gorging 

 themselves with rowan - berries. They may fre- 

 quently be seen with their upraised beaks wide open, 

 as if at the last gasp, having taken in a larger number 

 of berries than they can conveniently swallow. 



The English Robin, our childhood's pet, is so 

 intimately and so pleasurably associated with all our 

 thoughts and recollections of "Home" — as we in 

 Canada always term the dear old island across the 

 Atlantic — that it has ever been a source of regret to 

 me that the Tiirdus migratorius, a bird so widely 

 differing in every respect from the British Redbreast, 

 has been selected as its American confrere. And 

 this regret is enhanced by the consideration that 

 another choice might have been made, in every way 

 more satisfactory, in the Blue Bird, Sylvia stalls — a 

 bird named by Bufifon le Rouge Gorge Bleu, or the 

 Blue Redbreast. 



I cannot but fancy that the name of Robin was 

 given to the Turdus viigratorius by some enthusiast 

 who had not, up to that time, seen a "Blue Bird," 

 and who, resolved that we should at all events possess 

 the luxury of a Robin on this continent, gave that 

 name to the first bird adorned with a rufous breast 

 that presented itself to his view. 



The Blue Bird is about the size of the English 

 Robin, and very much resembles that much-loved 

 bird in its shape and in its characteristics. It has a 

 blue instead of a brown back, and a red breast, and 

 is one of our earliest and most welcome visitants. 



Vincent Clementi, B.A. 



Pcterboro\ Ontario, Canada. 



ON CERTAIN GENERA OF LIVING FISH 

 AND THEIR FOSSIL AFFINITIES, 



THE following very interesting and able paper, 

 by Miss Crane, was recently read before the 

 Brighton and Sussex Natural History Society : — 



On first thoughts, it may seem that the lowest group 

 of vertebrates, of all the divisions comprised in the 

 animal kingdom, might be most easily described, and 

 its zoological limits defined ; but, on examination, the 

 fishes prove to be most curiously linked to the inverte- 

 brata below and the amphibian reptiles above. In 

 fact, it is not easy to draw the lines positively between 

 them, and to say where the true vertebrates begin, or 

 where the piscite characters are merged in the reptilian. 



