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HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



[June 1, 1S69. 



ZOOLOGY. 



Hornbills at Home.— I had sent my hunters 

 to shoot, and while I was at breakfast they re- 

 turned, bringing me a fine large male of the Bu- 

 ceros bicornis, which one of them assured me he had 

 shot while feeding the female, which was shut up 

 in a hole in a tree. I had often read of this curious 

 habit, and immediately returned to the place, ac- 

 companied by several of the natives. After cross- 

 ing a stream and a bog, we found a large tree 

 leaning over some water, and on its lower side, at a 

 height of about twenty feet, appeared a small hole, 

 and what looked like a quantity of mud, which I 

 was assured had been used in stopping up the large 

 hole. After a while we heard the harsh cry of 

 a bird inside, and could see the white extremity 

 of its beak put out. I offered a rupee to any 

 one who would go up and get out the bird 

 with the egg or young one, but they all declared 

 it was too difficult, and they were 

 afraid to try. I therefore very reluc- 

 tantly came away. In about an hour 

 afterwards, much to my surprise, a 

 tremendous, loud, hoarse screaming 

 was heard, and the bird was brought 

 me, together with a young one, which 

 had been found in the hole. This was 

 a most curious object, as large as a 

 pigeon, but without a particle of 

 plumage on any part of it. It was 

 exceedingly plump and soft, and with 

 a semi-transparent skin, so that it 

 looked more like a bag of jelly, with 

 head and feet stuck on, than like a 

 real bird. The extraordinary habit of the male in 

 plastering up the female with her egg, and feeding 

 her during the whole time of incubation, and till 

 the young one is fledged, is common to several of 

 the large hornbills, and is one of those strange facts 

 in natural history which are "stranger than fiction." 

 — Wallace's "Malay Archipelago" 



Imported Insects. — The (by some persons) 

 proposed reintroduction of extinct and resuscitation 

 of waning species of native lepidoptera will not, 

 I trust, be carried out. It appears to me that it 

 would be both an unsatisfactory and also foolish 

 proceeding. Unsatisfactory, because the capture 

 of a rare insect (say V. antlopa) would be robbed 

 of half its charm aud delight were we once doubtful 

 whence the specimen came. If we knew that Mr. 

 Brown, of London, had been "turning out" Antiopa 

 from imported pupae, or that Mr. Jones, of the 

 New Forest, or Mr. Robinson, of Brighton, had 

 been doing the same, we should, on capture, never 

 pin one of those insects into our cabinets with any 

 real satisfaction, or be able to point to it as a 

 British-caught specimen with any show of honesty. 



Foolish, because the disappearance or increasing 

 rarity of certain species indicates a change in or 

 withdrawal of those circumstances or conditions 

 essential for their prolonged existence amongst our 

 fields and woods ; and, unless we can restore those 

 conditions, to attempt to revive the species is simply 

 to fight against nature. Let us keep our island soil 

 safe against the intrusion of foreign "lepidops," 

 as we would against foreign bayonets. Let us, say 

 I, tramp our woods and wilds through a lifetime, 

 and still at the end, may be, find our labels " unspe- 

 cimened " (to coin a word), rather than specimen 

 them with wretched (however beautiful) four-winged 

 impostures. — W. Hambrough. 



Spider's Foot. — Mr. Moginie has forwarded to 

 me a curiously prepared slide of a spider's foot. 

 He says the creature was captured by a friend of 

 his last autumn, and on examining it, he found it 

 was just about to shed its skin ; all its parts, jaws, 

 cephalothorax, and legs, being in duplicate ; that is 



Fig. 108. 



to say, the newly- formed limb in each case was 

 within the old one. The slide, which has been 

 drawn by Mr. A. Hammond, shows that the process 

 of withdrawing the limb has begun (fig. 10S). To 

 find the cast-off skins of spiders, and even to see 

 them changing their coats on summer evenings, is 

 common : but I never before saw a prepared slide 

 showing the process. — S. J. If'Intire. 



Early Birds.— Some of the summer birds are 

 with us this year earlier than usual. As soon as 

 ever that very severe weather which we had during 

 March and up to the 6th day of April changed 

 to a much warmer weather, the common Wagtail 

 calls in upon us, and on April the 13th we find the 

 Chiffchaff Warbler in our garden, and on the next 

 day, April 14th, just before the great thunderstorm, 

 the Chimney Swallow puts in an appearance ; and 

 on April 16th, the Willow Wren. 



Although we are accustomed to see more or les.i 

 of the Smaller Humming-bird Moth towards the 

 end of summer down here, yet I certainly was 

 surprised to find the Larger Humming-bird Moth 

 hovering about the early bulbs in this garden so 



