Aug. 1, 1SC9.] 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



1S9 



Do Cats eat Reptiles? — I have known several 

 instances where cats have eat both slow-worms and 

 snakes as readily as they did eels. We have in 

 South Wales a saying to the effect that "a May 

 kitten will turn out a snake cat." It means that a 

 kitten born in the month of May will, when grown 

 into a cat, bring snakes into the house ; and as all 

 the lower class of Welsh have an idea that every 

 kind of creeping thing, from the poor little harmless 

 newt down to the wicked-looking viper, is ven- 

 omous, and call every sort of reptile a snake, kittens 

 born in May are usually destroyed. I had a large 

 black cat once which caught slow-worms, efts 

 (newts), and snakes. She, though not a May kitten, 

 would bring her prey into the house, a by no means 

 desirable accomplishment in a cat thus retrieving, 

 for it is decidedly disagreeable to find part of a blind- 

 worm under the seat of your chair, or see a half-dead 

 ringed snake on the hearth-rug, when you come 

 down to breakfast on a June morning. Puss 

 generally eat a portion of both slow-worms and 

 snakes, but I never remember seeing her attempt 

 to taste a newt : she probably had done so in early 

 life, and found its skin disagree with her. How 

 very greedily some cats will devour eels ; my cook 

 used to declare she had more trouble in keeping the 

 eels from the cat's clutches than any other fish ; they 

 would pull them out of the pan of water in the 

 kitchen, or lift up the cover in the cellar to get at 

 the fish which she laid on the flags to keep cool; 

 and I actually saw a neighbour's cat take some live 

 eels from a little pond in my garden. I had lost 

 several grold-flsh in an unaccountable way, when 

 one day I saw a cat, who evidently did not mind 

 wetting her feet — a point cats are said to be par- 

 ticular about,— walk into the water and bring out a 

 good-sized eel. The pond was very shallow. — Helen 

 E. Watney, Anglesea House. 



Violets under Ash-trees.— Having unusual 

 facilities for noticing the vegetation under ash-trees 

 — our village name meaning " town of the ash- 

 trees " — I have, since May, examined them very 

 carefully. The following plants I found growing 

 under one tree : — Ranunculus acris, Viola canina, 

 Viola odorata, Polygala vulgaris, Geranium Robert- 

 ianum, Melilotus officinalis, Veronica Chamsedrys, 

 Spiraea TJimaria, Geum urbanum, Potentilla repens, 

 Potentilla Anserina, Potentilla fragaria, Rosa canina, 

 Rubus fruticosus, Gallium cruciatum, Primula 

 vulgaris, Leontodon Taraxacum, Mercurialis peren- 

 nis, Peliis perennis, Tussilago Farfara, Rumex 

 obtusifolius, Tamus communis, Hypericum perfora- 

 tum, and in the hedge-row, Dogwood, Hazel, 

 Holly, Privet, and Whitethorn. Under another 

 ash-tree I found growing side by side Viola canina 

 and Viola hirta, and last spring I found the sweetest 

 little bed of Viola odorata- — which is by no means a 

 common plant here — under an ash-tree, nestling 

 among its roots. Besides the above-mentioned 

 plants I found others, and altogether, in one even- 

 ing, I had about seventy specimens, gathered solely 

 from under ash-trees ; so I have come to the same 

 conclusion as " H. S. M." in the current number of 

 Sciexce-Gossip. — TV. J. Hill. 



Missel-thrush and Missel-toe (p. 164). — This 

 is surely a misconception: — 1. The Mistletoe is 

 named from the Latin word viscum, from which we 

 have our word viscid ; its Saxon form was mistelta, 

 which we have corrrupted into toe. 2. The Missel- 

 thrush {Tardus viscivorus) is so named because it 

 feeds upon the berries of the Mistletoe plant ; hence 



the vfovA r whci-vorus ; from viscum, and voro to de- 

 vour. — A. H. 



Local Names of the Gooseberry.— I've a 

 strong conviction that our word is a corruption of 

 the French word gros, and equivalent to the Latin 

 crassus : the currant and the gooseberry are both 

 ribes : the currant or smaller berry, is corrupted 

 from Corinth ; the gooseberry is the gross or larger 

 berry. The scientific name Ribes grossalaria is 

 closely followed in the French groseille ; but it can- 

 not be doubted that the same word is the origin of 

 both gros and gross. The local names fay, feaps, 

 /cabs, and fabes are called corruptions of jebris, 

 the Latin for fever, as, according to old Gerarde, 

 the acidity of the gooseberry served as a febri- 

 fuge. — A. H. 



Variable Weather. — In July we had snow in 

 several parts of England, and m April I had a fine 

 ' dish of mushrooms gathered in the open field. My 

 landlady tried to make me believe 1 should be 

 poisoned if I ate them ; but Science knew better 

 than Gossip, and I ate them for breakfast and en- 

 joyed them. They had a nicer flavour than any I 

 tasted last autumn. — JV. J. Hill. 



Cowslip. — I gathered a specimen of Primula 

 veris in the spring which had twenty-four distinct 

 blossoms on it. Is not that extraordinary? — IV. J. 

 Hill, Trefonen Cottage, near Oswestry. 



New Aneroid Barometer. — The hourly self- 

 recording Aneroid Barometer, just produced by the 

 London Stereoscopic Company, appears to be a 

 decided improvement in the construction of baro- 

 meters. It combines an eight-day clock with an 

 aneroid barometer, and between them revolves a 

 vertical cylinder, having a paper attached, on which, 

 by a pencil connected with the clock, the position of 

 the barometer is marked every hour. This record 

 shows the height of the barometer, whether it is 

 falling or rising, for how long it has been doing so, 

 and at what rate the change is taking place. The 

 paper on the cylinder only requires changing once a 

 week. 



The Corn Cockle. — This plant, well named for 

 the beauty of its flowers Agrostcmma, or "the Crown 

 of the Field," has been frequent this summer in 

 our corn-fields. I would not now, however, so 

 much notice the rosy-purple petals, or the fantastic 

 prolongments of the calyx, as the great beauty of 

 the silicious, one-celled, needle-like hairs which 

 cover the styles. These are nearly upright, being 

 articulated to the column by a short curved joint. 

 Some of the upper ones are detached during the 

 growth of the flower, and, mixing with the pollen, 

 present their sharp points to the stigmata as if 

 designed to excite or pierce them. Here is a new 

 question for the physiologists, which they will not 

 perhaps be thankful for, just now that so many 

 others are on their hands. However, the style of 

 the Corn Cockle is worth an attentive observation 

 with the microscope for its beauty alone, which, in 

 its kind, is scarce inferior to the well-known "'An- 

 ther of the Mallow." The sharp little hairs might 

 be easily detached by gentle pressure between the 

 fingers, and transferred to a slip of glass for mount- 

 ing, either dry or in balsam. They would then 

 puzzle a professor, having much the shape of some 

 diatoms, and with similar markings ; this, of course, 

 on a larger scale. They are not purely silicious, 

 but sufficiently so to keep their form when dried, 

 and to colour under polarized light. — S. S. 



