Aug. 1, 1870.] 



HARWDICKE'S SCIENCE GOSSIP. 



1S5 



an occasion, and when he gets back again he be- 

 haves with the courtesy of a visitor, and is polite to 

 all. On the 11th of last June 1 was fortunate 

 enough to obtain four more of the same sort, a week 

 old ; after a few days we introduced them to the 

 old "Pecker," who was, however, so fierce that 

 they were at once removed. At the age of a fort- 

 night one of them was just able to peck, and they 

 were then put again with great caution into the 

 aviary and the old one taken out. When restored 

 a few days after, he was very civil, and finding both 

 that bis young kinsfolk had no design upon his 

 comfort, and that they did not feed sufficiently well 

 of themselves to be able to dispense with our atten- 

 tion, he kindly took this little matter off our hands, 

 and for several days dropped food into their mouths 

 with a care and regard little short of paternal. 

 They are now all living on very fair terms, and 

 sometimes group themselves very prettily together 

 about the top of their log in the full brightness of 

 the afternoon sun. — T. S. Carte. 



The Sea-Hake.— Away down the gentle slope 

 till we come to the line where the wavelets are 

 kissing the rock, where the next step would put us 

 into King Canute's circumstances, where the sea is 

 washing to and fro the shaggy weed, and just pre- 

 venting it from assuming the shrivelled and 

 blackened condition into which the tufts a little 

 above are fast falling under the baking powers of 

 this June sun ; and here, on these very weeds, now 

 submerged, now dry, are crawling some uncouth 

 beings of a dark liver-colour or purple-brown hue. 

 The creature passes by the name cf Sea-hare 

 {Ajjlysia punctata), a not inappropriate designation, 

 for I have often seen it in postures when the resem- 

 blance to a crouching hare was spontaneously sug- 

 gested. Around Weymouth, where it is common, 

 the fishermen and shore boys call it the sea-cow, 

 which is not a bad hit, though not so happy as that 

 of hare. In each case, the feature which strikes 

 the imagination and suggests the comparison with 

 the quadruped, is the pair of tentacles which stand 

 erect, but a little diverging from the back of the 

 head, and which consist of an expanded lamina un- 

 folded at the base, and, as it were, cut off slantingly 

 so as to look like a hare's ears. There are, indeed, 

 two pairs of tentacles of similar structure ; but 

 the front pair are more commonly stretched 

 forward horizontally, and held near the ground, 

 so as to be much less conspicuous. — A Year at the 

 Shore. 



Diffltjence op Kolpods. — One of the most 

 surprising phenomena in the study of Infusoria is 

 their disorganization by diffluence. This decompo- 

 sition is either entire or partial. Muller has seen 

 a kolpod (Kolpoda meleagris) melt away until 

 scarcely 1-1 0th of his body remained ; the rest con- 



tinuing to swim about as if nothing had happened. 

 The Infusoria present still another kind of decom- 

 position. If we approach the drop of water in 

 which the animalcule lives with the barb of a 

 feather wet with ammonia, the animal ceases its 

 swimming motion instantly, although its cilia still 

 vibrate rapidly. Suddenly, at some point of its 

 circumference, a notch is formed, which increases 

 more and more until the whole animal is dissolved. 

 If, while this process be going on, a drop of pure 

 water be added, the decomposition is at once 

 arrested, and that which remains of the animalcule 

 begins to move and swim as if the ammonia had 

 never been in the neighbourhood, and had not dis- 

 solved the greater part of its substance.— The World 

 of the Sea. 



Eggs.— Notice !— There was an audacity of state- 

 ment in an advertisement in your last number, 

 headed " Eggs, Splendid Varieties," and signed " J. 



A. De Verny, Esq., Valley, Anglesea," which could 

 only have imposed on the veriest tyro. But for 

 the sake of such, it may be as well to state that no 

 such person as De Verny is known at Valley, and 

 that letters addressed to him are called for at the 

 post-office there by a certain dealer in [eggs. — H. 



B. Tristram. 



White Ants, ok Tekmites.— That such dimi- 

 nutive insects — for they are scarcely the fourth of an 

 inch in length — however numerous, should, in the 

 space of three or four years, be able to erect a build- 

 ing twelve feet high and of a proportionable bulk, 

 covered by a vast dome, adorned without by nu- 

 merous turrets and pinnacles, and sheltering under 

 its ample arch myriads of vaulted apartments of 

 various dimensions, and constructed of different 

 materials ; that they should, moreover, excavate 

 in different directions, and at different depths, innu- 

 merable subterranean roads or tunnels some twelve 

 or thirteen inches in diameter, or throw an arch of 

 stone over other roads leading from the metropolis 

 into the adjoining country to the distance of several 

 hundred feet ; that they should project and finish 

 the, for them, vast interior staircases, or bridges, 

 lately described; and finally, that the millions 

 necessary to execute such Herculean labours, per- 

 petually passing to and fro, should never interrupt 

 or interfere with each other, is a miracle of Nature, 

 or rather of the Author of Nature, far exceeding 

 the most boasted works and structures of man ; for 

 did these creatures equal him in size, retaining their 

 usual instincts and activity, their buildings would 

 soar to the astonishing height of more than half a 

 mile, and theirtunnels would expand to a magnificent 

 cylinder of more than three hundred feet in diameter, 

 before which the pyramids of Egypt and the aque- 

 ducts of Rome would lose all their celebrity and 

 dwindle into nothings. — Kirby, Introd. 



