i56 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



the Volga ; perhaps this fact will explain the anomaly. 

 (See "Gardener's Chronicle," 24th Oct. 1874). 

 Some writer says there used to be a great annual fair 

 at Leipzig for cucumbers, when the streets were heaped 

 up a story high with that precious element of German 

 cookery. In Germany barrels of half and also full- 

 grown cucumbers are preserved from one year to the 

 other by immersion in deep wells, where the uniform 

 temperature and exclusion from air seem to be the 

 preserving agents. 



Nothing can be more agreeable to our olfactory 

 nerves on a hot summer's day than the refreshing and 

 cooling scent of a fresh-sliced cucumber, but perhaps 

 it is not generally known that in the art of perfuming 

 it finds its way to the toilet-table under the form of 

 cold cream and milk of cucumbers. The large seeds 

 of this tribe are employed instead of almonds in 

 making cheap sugar-plums. The word cucumber is 

 derived from the Latin cucuniis, meaning the same 

 thing. Some time since there was a controversy 

 carried on in " Notes and Queries" as to the proper 

 pronunciation of the first syllable, whether it should be 

 cow or at. Parkinson (1656) writes it " cowcumber," 

 by which name it is called by the uneducated, but 

 people with any education would never think of 

 writing or pronouncing it otherwise than " cucumber." 

 Tartary has been assigned to this species of cucumber 

 as its native country, but upon what authority is 

 equally questionable with that of the melon. No 

 modern traveller appears to have found it wild. 



OUR COMMON BRITISH FOSSILS, AND 

 WHERE TO FIND THEM. 



No. VII. 



By J. E. Taylor, F.L.S., F.G.S., &c. 



IT is with a sense of delighted relief that we once 

 more resume this series 

 of articles ; which have been 



Fig. 125. — Extinct kind of Free 

 Crinoids (Marsitpiics Milleri), 

 from White Chalk. 



unavoidably interrupted by a 

 too prolonged pressure and 

 strain of other literary work. 

 We propose in the present 

 article to call attention to the 

 commonest fossils belonging 

 to the Star-fish and Sea- 

 urchin family. Few fossils 



have a prettier or"more attractive aspect than they, 

 and none exceed them in the singular beauty of their 

 structures, and their marvellous adaptation to their 

 ancient habits of life. 



Now that we have got rid of the useless term 

 "Radiata," and are beginning to arrange animals in 

 their natural relationship to each other, we have 



Fig. 127. — Astcrias tcssellata, one of the Cushion-stars. 



:'"ig. 126. — Pentrcmitcs flo- 

 rcalis, one of the Blastoi- 

 dca, from Carboniferous 

 Limestone, n, Profile ; b, 

 summit ; c, base or pelvis. 



Fig. 128. — " Five-fingers " Star-fish (Uraster rubens). 



begun to learn comparative zoology. To this most 

 interesting study the whole science of paleontology — 

 or that which deals with the extinct life of our globe — 

 contributes equally with zoology. In surveying such 

 a large natural group as that formed by the annuloid 

 animals, we are frequently surprised by the singular 

 way in which otherwise extreme types spring from 

 almost common or neutral ground. Thus, the extinct 

 groups of Cystideans and Pentremites, peculiar to 

 the Palaeozoic rocks, and which severally represent two 

 different orders, in some measure come as near to the 

 Encrinite family on one side as the Pouch Encrinite 

 (Marsupites) of the chalk formation does both to them 



