NOTES. 



431 



ored fashion, with a little stick or her 

 thumb-nails ; places the rude vessel thus 

 formed a kind of bowl or cup in the 

 strong heat of the sun, or before the blaze 

 of the peat-fire, and so produces a rough, 

 unglazcd craggan, out of which she drinks 

 her milk, and in which she infuses her tea. 

 And all the while let it be noted with all 

 the emphasis at our command several of 

 her neighbors, with whom she is in daily 

 intercourse, and with whom her teacher has 

 been in daily intercourse, possess and use 

 some of the finest ware that Leek or Burs- 

 1cm can produce. All round here, even in 

 Tiree, are products of advanced art ; but 

 this native artist goes on her way unheed- 

 ing all change and all advance, and turn- 

 ing out her unglazed ware as her ancestors 

 had done though probably in a superior 

 style of art and workmanship for per- 

 haps thousands of years." Another fact 

 to be noticed about these prehistoric re- 

 mains is " that, of existing ' Celtic ' brooches 

 and penannular rings exhumed from great 

 depths, the most highly finished, both in 

 form and ornamentation, design and work- 

 manship, are certainly the oldest," all show- 

 ing that there has " at least been a relapse 

 in a particular art." 



Birds in Cold Weather. M. F. Lescu- 

 yer has published some interesting observa- 

 tions concerning the power that was shown 

 by the birds of his district of the valley of 

 the Marne, France, for resisting the severe 

 cold of the winter of 1879-80. The spar- 

 rows, finding shelter and food around the 

 houses, passed the season fairly well, but 

 some of them perished in the roads and gar- 

 dens ; they became more scarce toward the 

 end of the winter, and lost all their liveli- 

 ness. The partridges gave way under sixty- 

 one days of cold and hunger, and those that 

 survived fell an easy prey to the hawks. A 

 private watchman caught more than thirty 

 with his hands, warmed them up, and let 

 them loose again. The owls in the lofts 

 and steeples could not resist the cold, and 

 fell dead to the ground, or took refuge in 

 the houses, where they were captured. The 

 stomachs of all these birds were empty or 

 nearly empty. The crows, which range over 

 a larger extent of land than the former birds, 

 which may be called sedentary birds, came 

 nearer to the houses when the cold was at 



its worst, and considerable numbers of them 

 were seen during the whole winter in the 

 barn-yards and fields. Some of them came 

 into the court-yards to eat with the pigeons, 

 but many were frozen to death on the limbs 

 where they roosted. The few birds of pas- 

 sage that staid in the country to winter 

 showed very unequal powers of resistance. 

 The bullfinches and grossbeaks did not seem 

 to suffer, but the larks, yellow-hammers, 

 greenfinches, robin - redbreasts, magpies, 

 blackbirds, and jays were decimated. Never 

 were so few birds seen in the woods at that 

 season as in the following spring. Birds of 

 passage, coming from the north to seek a 

 milder climate in France, were disappointed. 

 Domestic birds would have suffered greatly 

 but for the shelter and feeding they en- 

 joyed ; fowls were worse affected than web- 

 footed birds. The winter to which these 

 observations relate was one of the severest 

 ever experienced in France, and was very 

 much like one of our Northern winters. 



NOTES. 



Dr. D. E. Salmon has pursued parallel 

 investigations with those of M. Pasteur, of 

 the microbe of hen cholera, and has conclu- 

 sively satisfied himself of the accuracy of 

 the results announced by the latter. lie 

 regards his researches as demonstrating that 

 the virulent liquids of the fowl's body con- 

 tain micrococci, that these can be cultivated, 

 and that liquids in which bacteria are cul- 

 tivated produce the disease by inoculation. 

 His experiments indicate that the activity of 

 the virus is destroved at a temperature of 

 182 Fahr. 



George II. K. Thwaites, Director of the 

 Royal Botanic Garden at Peradcniga, Cey- 

 lon, died September 1 1th. He was appointed 

 to the position in 1849, and in connection 

 with it published in 185S-'64 an enumera- 

 tion of the plants of Ceylon (" Enumeratio 

 plantarum Zeylanice"). He was active in 

 introducing to the island the cultivation of 

 cinchona, tea, cocoa, Liberian coffee, and the 

 India-rubber tree. 



According to Mr. G. Macloskie, the elm- 

 leaf beetle hibernates in cellars and attics 

 in countless numbers. Three broods are 

 brought forth in a season. This destructive 

 insect is found only in the Eastern States 

 and parts of New Jersey and Pennsylvania. 

 Poison is the most complete remedy for it 

 one pound of London purple to one hun- 

 dred gallons of water, squirted up into the 

 tree. 



