Aug. 1, 1870.] 



HARDWICKB'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



191 



these tiny agents, the shrub before ns must have 

 been without its chief ornament, and its chief means 

 of continuing the species. The matter is brought 

 about thus. It, is the nature of this plant, that the 

 anthers containing the precious pollen should lie in 

 the hollow of the petals, instead of being, as is 

 usually the case, partially or entirely erect, and so 

 ready to discharge its contents on the stigma. In 

 the Berberry the anther lies pressed down, and 

 might, perhaps, so lie for ever without ever per- 

 forming its proper function, and the yellow pollen 

 might be embosomed in the rounded corolla in idle 

 luxury, were it not for a special adaptation, which 

 alters the whole aspect of affairs. The fact is, the 

 filament which supports the anther is not fixed 

 irrevocably to the lower part of the petal, but is 

 furnished with a hinge, and with a powerful spring 

 at its base. This hinge is of an exceedingly irri- 

 table nature, and, no sooner is it touched, than the 

 filament suddenly flies up, presses the anther 

 against the stigma, and then slowly falls back into 

 its former place. This phenomenon may be wit- 

 nessed at any time by merely touching the base of 

 the stamen with a pin. But if, instead of the 

 human hand, we imagine the foot of a bee or a 

 beetle to be applied to the irritable organ, the 

 same result would inevitably ensue — a circumstance 

 which must occur many times in the day, as the 

 insects in their flight seek for the sweet nectar in 

 the flower-cup of the Berberry. — W. W. Spice r, 

 Havre. 



At Table. — The custom of frog-eating in France 

 seems to date from the end of the fifteenth century. 

 Champier, writing in 1504, complains of the strange 

 taste of people who eat frogs, and cannot conceive 

 how persons of delicacy can eat " insects " bred in 

 marshes and stagnant ponds. " I have seen the 

 time in which people eat only frogs' thighs, but now 

 they actually eat the whole body, except the head ; 

 and, moreover, serve them fried with a little 

 parsley." Yet that the practice was not universal 

 we gather from Palissy, who, in his " Treatise on 

 Stones," says, " It is a thing that one sees every day 

 now, that men eat articles which formerly no one 

 would have eaten for anything in the world. In 

 my time I have known when you could have found 

 very few men who could have eaten either tortoises 

 or frogs." The custom, like that of eating beavers, 

 and that great delicacy, their big, flat tails, pro- 

 bably took its rise in the desire of the fasting, or 

 non-flesh-eating monks, to get something as like 

 flesh as possible ; and they, therefore, always reck- 

 oned amphibious animals as fish, not flesh. In like 

 manner, though certain monks would not eat pork, 

 they flavoured their vegetables with lard, and many 

 monasteries kept pigs for this purpose. Other mo- 

 nasteries got so far as to eat hashed meat, saying 

 that when meat was so disguised it was no longer 

 meat. Gregory the Ninth condemned this artifice 

 in the Constitution he gave to the Benedictines, 

 and declared that not only was meat forbidden to 

 them, but also hashes and stuffing made of meat. — 

 The Athenceum. 



Egg Vitality.— I have just had a singular and 

 somewhat remarkable proof of the vitality of the 

 pigeon's egg. On the 12th inst., at five p.m., 1 took 

 an egg from the nest of a common dragon, the shell 

 being at the time just raised and cracked by the 

 gentle tapping of the bird, which should, if left with 

 the parent bird, be hatched by mid-day of the 13th. 

 At five p.m. of the 13th I lifted the shell at the 



place where it was raised, and saw a slight pulsa- 

 tion. The egg was stone cold at the time. I then 

 placed the egg in another nest which contained 

 young birds four days old : by this it did not get so 

 much heat as with the parent. This morning, the 

 14th, the bird was hatched, although the egg was 

 twenty-four hours out of a nest. — Charles J. W. 

 Rtidd. 



Floscularia campanulata.— It will be interest- 

 ing to observers to know, that during the past two 

 mouths, June and July, I have had under observa- 

 tion several individuals of this species, which had 

 attained the height of ^ of an inch, measured from 

 the foot attachment to the upper surface of the 

 dorsal lobe- in its incurved position ; the tubes, in 

 all instances, extended well up into their necks ; some 

 of the tubes were thickly coated with particles, 

 while others were pellucid and free from such in- 

 crustation. — Charles Cubitt. 



Squirrel. — A squirrel was seen carrying off 

 young birds from a nest. It was shot whilst in the 

 act ' of carrying away a mutilated bird, and the in- 

 ference is, that the squirrel had devoured a portion 

 of the bird. Can any reader say whether squirrels 

 eat animal as well as vegetable food ? Or, whether 

 this was probably a case of the same morbid ap- 

 petite as is displayed when a rabbit eats its own 

 young ones ? — H. 



Aquarium: Difficulty.— I have an aquarium in 

 my garden, holding between two and three hogs- 

 heads of water (fresh). Unfortunately, a short time 

 since, I put in some plants of Myosotis, obtained 

 from a river, and by that means unknowingly intro- 

 duced some Lemncece stagnates: they now literally 

 swarm, and every green thing is destroyed. Will 

 any one kindly tell what fish oi« animal I can intro- 

 duce that will destroy both snails and spawn ? I 

 have several nests of sticklebacks just hatched out, 

 and do not wish them sacrificed if I can help it. — 

 H. J. C. 



Double Brood.— Some of your readers maybe 

 interested to hear of a particular in the natural 

 economy of JSf. cucullina, which is, I believe, not 

 generally known ; viz., that it occasionally has two 

 broods in the year. I obtained several pupse of this 

 somewhat rare species (from Mr. Harwood, of Col- 

 chester) last winter, which emerged at intervals 

 from May 9th to June 5th. Of these a couple 

 paired on the night of May 20th, and the female 

 laid about 100 eggs, of which unfortunately only 

 about half a dozen hatched, and only two larvae lived 

 to reach any size. _ One of these died, the other 

 turned to a chrysalis during the first week of July, 

 and emerged, to my great surprise, July 21st. It 

 was a fine female. I ought to have stated that I 

 kept the insects out of doors. — F. D. Wheeler. ; 



Swallows' Nests. — A pair of swallows have this 

 season built their_ nest within the Girls' National 

 School-room of this town, finding their way in and 

 out through the open'windows or ventilators. There, 

 undisturbed by the daily noise of from seventy to 

 eighty children, they are bringing up a small family. 

 This day the Government Inspector of Schools 

 was introduced to this small infant class, and was 

 amused at seeing four or five little heads peeping 

 out on the proceedings below, and keeping up an 

 incessant twittering, as if wondering at the unusual 

 serious faces of their little friends below. — William 

 Wright, M.D., Shepston, nearStour. 



