April 1, 1869.] 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



95 



Alas poor. Dragon Ely ! —A Plea for Science 

 Schools. — Oa the 1st of March, just as I was 

 starting for the railway station, the March number 

 of Science-Gossip arrived, which I put in my 

 pocket, together with that morning's Standard, to 

 read in the train. Having glanced over Science- 

 Gossip, I was about attacking the Standard, when 

 a fellow-passenger asked permission to see the 

 journal, and was soon deep in its contents. Read- 

 ing the newspaper, I came, inter alia, to an article 

 on Mr. Sykes's Bill for the protection of sea-birds, 

 with which I agreed until I reached the following 

 statement :— " It has been calculated that a gull on 

 the wing will devour from sixty to seventy dragon- 

 flies a minute, and each one of these might otherwise 

 deposit larva sufficient to destroy before fruition a 

 handful of corn." Turning to my fellow-traveller, 

 who had expressed his satisfaction with your March 

 number, I said, " What do you thiuk of that ? " 

 " Very strange, is it not ? " was the reply. " More 

 strange, if true," said I, "for, leaving out the 

 blunder of larva for larva?, how could creatures 

 which spend the egg, larval, and pupal state in water 

 possibly devour a handful of wheat, either before or 

 after fruition ? Besides, who has calculated the 

 number of possible dragon-flies devoured per 

 minute by a gull on the wing ? " See the mischief 

 done by one who, ignorant of natural history, at- 

 tempts to teach, through the public press, a lesson 

 on dragon-flies. Enough, we would have thought, 

 for them to bear the unenviable title of " horse- 

 stingers," and to be held in dread, as they are in 

 this country, because their " sting is wus nor that 

 of ten harnets," without the equally false accusation 

 of destroying grain being laid at their door. In his 

 semi- knowledge, the writer has mixed up some form 

 of tipula, perhaps the Hessian fly, and then, taking 

 the dragon-fly for his text, has cast a slur upon a 

 friend, not a foe, to the fanner. Writers of this stamp 

 prove the need of science schools and the utility 

 of such publications as Science-Gossip to correct, 

 or at least clear up, such mysteries as the " chignon 

 disease," genuine "mosquitoes," and "humming- 

 birds " in England, and the discover)/ (?) of snow 

 crystals in 1869 ,—T. W. W., Brighton. 



Eungia patellaria. — When searching for fossils 

 in a carboniferous limestone quarry a few days 

 since, I found a mushroom coral, or what I believe 

 to be one. It is about one inch diameter, and in 

 good condition. This being the first coral of the 

 kind 1 have found in the limestone, I should be 

 glad to know if this variety of coral is common to 

 it— T. R. 



Daddy-long-legs— If " S. B. J. S." will look 

 out next September, he will probably find the host 

 whose "feckless" antics so surprised him to consist 

 chiefly of the female tipubx parting with their eggs. 

 Some years ago I saw such a host, but they were 

 ranging along over a grass held in short flights, 

 going all with the wind. Each iusect after seeming to 

 rest for a few seconds would be off again a yard or 

 two, then another halt, and so on. Catching some of 

 them I found they were females, and that they were 

 discharging eggs at intervals corresponding with 

 their short flights. The action seemed involuntary, 

 as it continued even when the insect was held — the 

 black polished eggs being one by one brought to the 

 end of the ovipositor, and, by compression of its 

 divisions, thrown out with a sudden snap, just as 

 the segments of the carpel of the pansy jerk out, by 

 contracting upon them, the smooth polished seeds. 

 — H. B. Biden. 



SriRORBis. — If your correspondent's small spiral 

 shells found on the casts of fossil ferns be air- 

 breathing gastcropods, they are not the first that 

 have been found. 1 have had a specimen of fern 

 in my cabinet for two or three years on which are 

 a number of these Spirorbis (a name which I see no 

 reason to alter). Mr. J. W. Salter, W.G.S., makes 

 mention of them in the Geologist of 1861. At 

 p. 181 he says : — " Attached to the plants that lie 

 among, above, and beneath the shell-beds, is found 

 abundantly a little sea-worm, or, rather, the spiral 

 case of a sea-worm {Spirorbis), which is well known 

 now upon sea-wrack and kelp, as it was upon 

 floating leaves and plant-stems in the coal period. 

 It is called Spirorbis carbonarius, from its habita- 

 tion in the coal." Of the marine origin of this 

 little shell I feel no doubt. In the shale in which 

 my specimen was found are vast quantities of fish 

 remains of several species, and the same species of 

 fish are found (but in another seam of coal) asso- 

 ciated with the Nautilus, Goniatite, Orthoceratite, 

 Acaciila-pectcn, &c. &c., which are all recognized as 

 marine shells. Mr. Salter makes mention of land- 

 snails found by Professor Dawson and C. Lyell in 

 Nova Scotia ; but they were very different from your 

 correspondent's. — John Buttertrorth. 



A Geological Puzzle. — The late storm made a 

 clean sweep of the beach at Beady-Money Cove, 

 Eowey, disclosing the singular triune formation of 

 its structure — the lower stratum being blue clay ; 

 the next an alluvial marly deposit, about a foot 

 thick, on which once grew a green coppice wood ; 

 and over that another stratum of blue clay — the 

 three layers belonging to various periods, the 

 middle, or vegetation streak, a mosaic of roots, 

 stems, and branches, being totally different from 

 the epochs which produced the upper and under 

 crusts, the whole being under water at high tide. — 

 W.B. 



A Sand Query. — When at the Sussex coast, in 

 the autumn of 1866, 1 observed a curious appearance 

 in the sand, which I am quite at a loss to explain. 

 On turning up the sand, though it might be only 

 to the depth of an inch or two, it appeared of 

 a decided pink colour, while the water which flowed 

 into the hole exhibited the same hue, and in even a 

 more marked degree. The mere impression of one's 

 foot on the sand produced the red appearance, 

 though where the sand was untouched it was quite 

 of the usual colour. Could this have been due to 

 the presence of anv microscopic vegetable ? — D. H. 

 Scott. 



Mole Cricket. — If your correspondent "E. M." 

 will refer to the second volume of Kirby & Spence's 

 " Entomology," or the cheap edition of the intro- 

 duction, published by Longmans, in one volume, he 

 will find in the twenty-fifth letter (" On Luminous 

 Insects ") the only authority I believe there is for 

 supposing that the mole cricket is luminous. The 

 writer of the letter there says :— " A learned friend 

 (Dr. Sutton, of Norwich) has informed me that when 

 he was curate of Ickledon, Cambridgeshire, in 17S0, a 

 farmer of that place, of the name of Simpringham, 

 brought to him a mole cricket (Gri/llotalpa_ vul- 

 garis), and told him that one of his people seeing a 

 jack-o'-lantern, pursued it and knocked it down, 

 when it proved to be this insect, and the identical 

 specimen shown to him." The anecdote forms the 

 text of a somewhat fantastic story in the third 

 series of "Episodes of Insect Life," in which the 



1 mole cricket is made to perforin the part of jack- 



: o'-lantern.— II. F. H. 



