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HAREWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



With regard to Mr. Rogers's remark that the 

 "difference which exists is chiefly one of develop- 

 ment," I do not agree. I cannot comprehend 

 "developing instinct," and the sentence seems 

 contradictory in itself. The same question arose at a 

 Debating Society, to which I belong, on a discussion 

 "Is conscience a true guide?" when the apparent 

 consciousness of wrong-doing in dogs was argued in 

 support of the affirmative. Mr. Keegan has, I think, 

 explained this, and the fact of dogs being endowed with 

 sufficient instinct to know that which gives them pain, 

 is not sufficient to convince me that the knowledge is 

 the result of reasoning. — Idea. 



Intelligence in Man and Animals. — The 

 following anecdote which came under my own 

 observation some years ago is a curious instance of 

 memory and reasoning in a cow, and can hardly be 

 relegated to mere instinct. My father had sold a 

 cow, which we had reared, to a neighbouring farmer, 

 who kept her three years and then sold her to a 

 miller four miles farther from our homestead. She 

 was with the miller three years, having been absent 

 from us six years, and never in the interim having 

 visited the spot ; but she had not forgotten its com- 

 forts, especially the scalded mashes of bran and 

 pollard mixed with home-brewed ale that were pro- 

 vided for her at the birth of her calves. One winter 

 day (January 12) when she was about to calve, her 

 master had to leave home, and put her in charge of 

 his man, who forgot her. At night she was looked 

 for in vain. She had at last found her opportunity 

 and escaped to flee to her old beloved home, and 

 actually reached our orchard fence, when she could 

 get no farther, and there her calf was born, and she 

 had the satisfaction after all her trials of being nursed 

 in her old cow-house. — S. Martin. 



Position of the Mouth in Sharks. — The 

 peculiar position of the mouth in the sharks and some 

 of their allies, used to be a frequent theme of com- 

 ment among naturalists of the old school. It was 

 pointed out as nothing less than a special arrangement 

 to enable a destined victim to escape, while the shark 

 was turning on one side to bite. In other words it was 

 plainly seen to be a structural feature disadvantageous 

 to the species in which it occurs. Singularly enough, 

 I have seen no reference to this anomaly in any work, 

 either advocating or combating the Darwinian hypo- 

 thesis. It seems to me very difficult, if not incapable 

 of explanation on the view of natural selection. If 

 the position of the mouth which prevails in most 

 fishes be the original one, it would seem that any 

 variation from such position must be disadvantageous 

 to the individual, and would militate powerfully 

 against its survival. Or if, on the other hand, the 

 original position of the fish-mouth was that which it 

 now occupies in sharks, I fail to see why any varia- 

 tion which tended to bring it forwards, should not 

 have easily and completely superseded the primitive 

 type among sharks, &c, as well as among other 

 fishes.— C. R. Slater. 



Egyptian Goose. — "The Shepton Mallet Journal " 

 announces that Mr. Padfield, of Pecking Mills, Ever- 

 creech, shot an Egyptian wild goose of beautiful 

 plumage, and weighing about 4.3 lb., near his mill- 

 pond, on February 27. There were two in company; 

 the other succeeded in making its escape, although 

 wounded. — W. Macmillan, Castle Cary, Somerset. 



Query as to Flower. — Can any of your readers, 

 kindly inform me, what flower Shakspeare refers to 



in the closing stanzas of " Venus and Adonis " ? where 

 he says — 



"A purple flower sprung up, chequer'd with white," 



and ends his reference thus : 



"There shall not be one minute in an hour, 

 Wherein I will not kiss my sweet love's flower." 



J. W. Wheldon, Jun. 



The Cuckoo's Eggs. — Having read in a previous 

 number some questions and remarks on the cuckoo 

 and its eggs, I thought I would give my experience 

 of that bird. I have frequently found the eggs and 

 young, but never in a nest built on the ground, in 

 which some say they are most often found. In some 

 works on ornithology it is said that eggs are frequently 

 laid in wrens' nests ; but surely that is a mistake, as 

 the young cuckoo would certainly be too large for 

 such a home. Those I have found were generally 

 either in robins' or hedge-sparrows' nests, and once 

 I found an egg in a half-built chaffinch's. On no 

 occasion have I found nor heard of more than one 

 egg in the chosen nest. How strange it is, that the 

 maternal instinct of birds should be unable to distin- 

 guish between their own nestlings and the awkward 

 and big young of the cuckoo ! Some time ago I 

 found the young of the latter bird in a robin's nest, 

 and as I wished, if possible, to keep it, I put it in a 

 large cage out-of-doors. It refused all nourishment, 

 and struggled fiercely when food was forced on it. 

 One day I was sitting a short distance from the cage, 

 when I saw a robin fly right up to the bars, and give 

 some food to the cuckoo, which received its, presum- 

 ably, foster-mother, with a deal of fluttering and ap- 

 parent joy. For several days two robins fed him 

 regularly, but after a time they discontinued their visits, 

 and in spite of all my efforts the bird died. It seems 

 very curious that the robin-parent should have found 

 out and fed the cuckoo for so long a time, especially 

 as the bird was brought from a long distance to 

 my home. — Junior. 



On the Development of the House-Fly and 

 its Parasite. — If Mr. Holmes will again glance 

 over this paper, he will see that I had not the subject 

 of the sketches under observation at all, but that 

 these "were made by Mr. G. Harkus from the 

 microscope, with the aid of a Beale's reflector," and 

 that the size of the egg as given by him is there stated 

 to be jV) inch in diameter, while that of the maggot 

 on emergence was ^ inch. The discrepancy noted 

 may have arisen from the reduction of the original 

 drawings in engraving. It appeared to me that while 

 the egg and larva shown by Mr. Harkus were identical 

 with those matured in my experiment, the chrysalis 

 and fly were, as I stated, "undersized and im- 

 poverished ;" this I attributed to want of sufficient 

 nourishment while in the larval stage, the extra- 

 ordinary part of this matter being the wonderful 

 rapidity of the insect's metamorphosis. I cannot 

 agree with Mr. Holmes " that Musca domestica never 

 lays its eggs on meat," much stranger places of deposi- 

 tion have been noted, amongst snuff, for instance, the 

 ammoniacal odour being the probable inducement; 

 while, on the other hand, according to Cuvier, Musca 

 vomitoria sometimes selects a plant for the purpose, 

 "deceived by the cadaverous odour arising from 

 Arum Dracunculus when in flower, it also leaves its 

 eggs there." If Mr. Harkus can recover the subject 

 from which the sketches were made, and which he 

 thinks is preserved, I will pass it through for the 

 editor's determination. — M. H. Robson. 



