ii8 



HARD WICKE'S SCIENCE- G OSSIP. 



orous bird the cuckoo, and infatuated game-keepers 

 who shoot down the owls, our best mouse-catchers. 

 —y. W. Slater. 



Spiders' Webs. — Some time ago I heard a state- 

 ment to the effect that " spiders are unable to make 

 more than four webs during their life-time ; and that 

 should the fourth be destroyed the spider is hence- 

 forth dependent on outward circumstances entirely 

 for a home and its food." I have not been able to 

 find any corroboration of the above statement, and 

 should esteem it a favour if some reader will be able 

 to prove or disprove the above. — B. Truscott. 



The Marking of Wild Birds' Eggs at the 

 Smaller End. — Why are so very few of the eggs 

 of our wild birds which have variegated markings 

 found to be prominently coloured at the smaller end ? 

 The answer to this question is by no means a simple 

 one, and comprises almost endless complications and, 

 indeed, can at best be but indefinite, for this reason, 

 none of our zoologists seemed to have worked out 

 the glands containing the colouring matter of the 

 eggs. So, of course, it is only possible to theorise. 

 In the first place, it would be a sheer physical im- 

 possibility, as some people have supposed, for the 

 egg to be turned completely round in the oviduct, it 

 is far too tightly wedged for any gyration of the bird 

 to accomplish such a thing. And, again, this latter 

 theory would imply that the egg usually came down 

 the oviduct with the larger end pointing first, so that 

 it received the bulk of the colouring matter ; but 

 this is quite a misleading idea, for it is, with rare 

 exceptions, the smaller end of the egg which points 

 to the exterior, and not the larger. " Why, then, 

 does not the smaller end of the egg, in the majority 

 of cases, receive the bulk of the colour, instead of 

 the larger? " The answer is not very difficult to find. 

 The larger end of the egg, although coming down after 

 the smaller, naturally irritates and distends the colour- 

 secreting glands more than the latter, and therefore 

 receives the bulk of the markings. But why the eggs 

 of the falconidse and of the corvidae should be more 

 prone to have small end markings than the majority 

 of other birds is a much more difficult question to 

 answer. It seems to me, and probably many others 

 have also noticed it, that those eggs which most 

 usually exhibit distinct and prominent small end- 

 markings, are those which either have the colour 

 distributed in large blotches over the surface, or are 

 those which vary a great deal in both ground colour 

 and markings, as the eggs of the corvidos most 

 certainly do. In many cases of eggs marked with 

 large blotches of colour, it is almost impossible to 

 say they are not marked on the smaller end, they are 

 so diffusely and profusely marked all over. Of 

 course there are exceptions to every rule, and it 

 would be impossible to lay down a law confining the 

 small end-colouring of eggs to any particular group 

 of eggs. I have, for instance, in my own collection, 

 specimens of the rook, crow, sparrow-hawk, red- 

 backed shrike, yellow bunting and chaffinch, all very 

 distinctly marked on the smaller end, and all perfectly 

 normal in shape, except that of the chaffinch. I feel 

 that much more might and ought to be written on 

 this subject, and I hope that someone will offer more 

 satisfactory explanation of this freak of nature, than 

 I am able to do. — K. H. Jones. 



Power of the Limnid.-k to resist Cold. — 

 On the breaking up of the late frost I was examining 

 the thick ice on a large stone trough used by me as 

 an outdoor aquarium, when I observed a large 

 number of shells embedded in it. I removed some 

 large blocks and allowed them to melt slowly, after- 



wards straining the water and placing the shells in 

 a glass. There were a few examples of Pisidiiim 

 pitsillum, all dead ; Limna: pcrcgra and Z. stagnalis 

 were in large numbers, all young examples, ready to 

 crawl as soon as they dropped from the block of ice ; 

 Plajiorbis corneiis and PI. complajiatiis were also 

 found in quantity, mostly young examples and all 

 living. As the water had been frozen over for six 

 weeks, it is probable that the greater number of these 

 animals has been at least a month in a solid block of 

 ice. — W. A. Gain, Tux/ord, Newark. 



Birds and the Cold Weather. — Owing to 

 the cold weather, no doubt our native English birds 

 have suffered greatly. But perhaps readers would be 

 interested in hearing that I have seen not only a 

 great variety of birds in the garden, but all of which are 

 enumerated here since the frost. They are : — wood- 

 pecker, nuthatch, great, little, and blackcap tit, bull- 

 finch, goldfinch, greenfinch, chafiinch, wagtail, siskin, 

 yellow and reed bunting, owl, tree, house, and 

 hedge sparrows, tree creeper, gold-crested, common, 

 and willow wrens, the mischievous jay, wood-pigeon, 

 and the common blackbird and starling ; but not a 

 single thrush, which seems about the only kind of bird 

 affected by the cold. — Frederick W. Freeman, IVkiiweU, 

 Norwich. 



Extraordinary Entomological Discovery. 

 — Mr. A. S. Canham, of Crowland, has discovered a 

 peacock butterfly beneath a layer of gravel at 

 Crowland, some 20 feet in thickness, in a peat bed. 

 Mr, Canham was desirous of seeing the vegetable 

 formation in this bed, and for this purpose cut out a 

 brick of the peat. He then broke it open, and 

 immediately a butterfly flew out ! He captured the 

 butterfly, and it lived for about a fortnight after- 

 wards. Mr Canham supposed that the butterfly was 

 in the peat at the time the gravel was brought down 

 and thus sealed the bed. When the gravel was 

 removed the air penetrated the peat, and the process 

 of incubation was set up ; the breaking of the cake 

 of peat admitting more air, promoted the final 

 development of the butterfly, and it flew out. An 

 indentation in the peat coincides with the existence 

 of a chrysalis there, but the shell is lost. The peat 

 and butterfly were exhibited by Mr. Canham before 

 the Peterborough Natural History Society. — Grimsby 

 News. 



Curious Beliefs. — With reference to a " curious 

 belief" among the natives of county Mayo (Science- 

 Gossip for April, p. 75), I noted a few weeks since a 

 fact which seems to me to bear on the case of the 

 man who ate salmon for a fortnight, and became 

 apparently waterproof. A favourite cat of mine 

 became suddenly very ill, almost unconscious for 

 some days. A veterinary surgeon who saw it, advised 

 us to feed it partly on cod-liver oil ; it took about a 

 teaspoonful a day for about two days. By that time 

 its fur, which it never licked or cleaned in any way, 

 became remarkably glossy, and smelt strongly of the 

 oil. May not the oil in the salmon-flesh have a 

 similar result in the case of the fisherman ? 



Rise of Sap. — I asked a farmer of considerable 

 experience yesterday if he agreed with Mr. Reeves's 

 theories on the ascent or descent of sap. He did 

 not ; and adduced the following case, which not long 

 since occurred on his farm. Elms, he said, are gross 

 feeders. If they are in a hedgerow near hops they 

 send up suckers into the hop-gardens, choosing 

 especially the "hills "or hop-plants, which are the 

 most manured. A large mixen had been placed 

 beside a farm-road, about ten feet from a row of 



