Aug. 1, 1870.] 



HARDWICKE'S SCIEN C E-GOSSIP. 



175 



barren ; showing that, unlike moths of other families, 

 they do not remain quiescent until impregnated. It 

 might be supposed that the apterous females of cer- 

 tain species would show a most indubitable attrac- 

 tive power ; and this appears to be the case amongst 

 those Geometer known familiarly as the VV inter 

 Moths. The males in these are often found sitting 

 by day on palings or twigs, in near proximity to the 

 females, or Hying m slow circles round the same 

 spots at even-tide. So also is it with the stout- 

 bodied moths belonging to the rather abnormal 

 family amongst the Geometrina, known as the Am- 

 phydasida. One species in particular, well known 

 to the entomologists who occasionally explore our 

 London parks, — viz., the Brindled Beauty (B. 

 hirtarid), may be cited as an instance. When I 

 have had females of this species emerge in a breed- 

 ing-cage placed in an outhouse, the males have 

 clustered on the window, or hovered about the 

 door intent upon getting in. The males of two 

 Vapourers — the one so common and the other so 

 local — are, by the means we have indicated, brought 

 to the female wingless individuals ; and I have 

 several times obtained eggs of the Scarce Vapourer 

 (Orgyia gonostigma) by placing a female in the only 

 locality 1 know where the species occur near 

 London. Of the last attempt of this sort the result 

 was untoward. Some females having emerged from 

 their cocoons spun up in a preserve-pot, I hid them 

 in a convenient bush, and withdrew. Some mali- 

 cious bypasser, however, detected through the 

 leaves the white earthenware, and smashed it in 

 pieces, destroying moths and my future hopes. 

 Well, such mishaps must be sometimes. 



J. R. S. Clifford. 



COWPEB AND THE NIGHTINGALE. 



AS a warm admirer of this poet, and a diligent 

 student of his prose and poetry, I regard it 

 almost equivalent to "treason-felony" to find 

 serious fault with him. With regard to the Night- 

 ingale's song in mid-winter, I have felt a suspicion 

 that possibly the bard fell into>n error. We find 

 he does not say that he saw as well as heard this 

 bird, which thus welcomed the new year, and yet, 

 at a season when the trees are bare, one would have 

 imagined that he would have endeavoured to verify 

 the fact by ocular demonstration. There have been 

 birds which have mimicked the nightingale's song ; 

 the blackbird has been stated to do so sometimes, 

 and there would be nothing extraordinary in his 

 song being heard on the 1st of January, though 

 not a usual thing. Cowper alludes to this memor- 

 able nightingale in a letter written to his kinsman 

 Johnson (Norfolk Johnny), he having boasted that 

 he had plucked primroses on Candlemas Day ; and 

 Cowper thought his nightingale's song a more re- 

 markable thing, and adds that were it an omen for 



him it must surely be a good one. After all, the 

 incident must remain doubtful. J. B. S. C. 



LOCUSTS AT SEA. 



rpiTE Indian Ocean was like a mill-pond ; not a 

 -*- ripple was observable but what was caused 

 by the ship herself, and the word <: sea legs " was 

 never once used without a blush all the way across. 

 Neither was there any sail nor any signal observable 

 — a matter of deep regret to all, especially to those 

 who had invested in powerful binoculars before 

 leaving Bombay, in order specially to note the 

 sights of the voyage. For once, indeed, locusts 

 were a god-send, and the movements of a little 

 sparrow, which found not where to rest its foot, 

 except on the deck of the Behcet, were so closely 

 watched that the poor creature found no place of 

 repose from stem to stern, except in a dark nook of 

 the Captain's cabin, where its privacy could not be 

 rudely invaded, nor its hunt after flies and " all 

 such" interrupted by the proximity of the idle and 

 the curious. Whence the birdie came, we did not 

 much trouble ourselves; but we wondered much 

 about the locusts. Before leaving Bombay, we 

 were under the comfortable impression that these 

 creatures dared not, under paiu of death from 

 natural causes, approach to within a certain dis- 

 tance of the sea— the theory being that sea air 

 played the mischief with their lungs, whereupon 

 they sickened and died. But if this rule holds 

 good in the main, there certainly are some hardy 

 exceptions ; for, in the middle of the Indian Ocean, 

 hundreds of miles from land, there were our friends 

 the locusts, not in millions, as we left them in 

 Guzerat, but certainly in dozens oft repeated. How 

 they came there was very evident — they must have 

 flown ; but how they managed to fly so far without 

 suffering from mat de mer, the pangs of hunger, or 

 some other ill — that was the question on which no 

 one found himself qualified to express any decided 

 opinion. And they did not seem to be suffering 

 from anything in particular. They were precisely 

 the same species of locust that was sent down " on 

 view" to Bombay in soda-water bottles from 

 Guzerat, and they were as lively as possible. 

 Therefore it was that they were a god-send, as I 

 have said ; for, numerous as they were, any indi- 

 vidual member took a great deal of catching. This 

 catching of the larger ones for, the doctor and other 

 enthusiastic naturalists to pickle, was a most 

 interesting occupation for three or four days ; and 

 probably the mention thereof will be of interest to 

 naturalists elsewhere. Seeing that these locusts 

 continued to cover the awnings and crowd the rig- 

 ging for days — fresh supplies every morning — they 

 must have been spread over a great expanse of sea, 

 600 miles at the very least.— From letter written on 

 board the " Behar," Times of India, Nov. 24, 1869. 



