Oct. 1, 1870.] 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



227 



and has its floral organs arranged in fours or 

 fives, and is an Exogen, and yet in exceptional 

 cases deviates from the usual plan, and produces 

 Exogens with parts, ■which, being arranged in tri- 

 plets, appear to have some connection with the other 

 class. 



The other example Mr. Aitken describes as 

 follows. " On the day after I saw you, I found a 

 seedling sycamore with four cotyledonous leaves. 

 This I took home with me to watch its growth, 

 thinking there might be a possibility of its growing 

 four leaves iu a whorl ; but this was not the case, 

 but, instead, two shoots, or stems, sprang up from 

 the seed-leaves simultaneously, forming two leaders 

 (if I may call them so). Is not this latter one, 

 truly, a vegetable Siamese twin ? " 



Here we have, undoubtedly, a clear case of a 

 multiplicity of cotyledons being caused by the 

 union of two embryos in one seed. 



Robert Holland. 



THE TO WING-NET. 



OUR brave but unfortunate neighbours, the 

 Erench, have an old proverb " God sends the 

 meat, but the Devil sends the cooks " ; and as it is 

 said to be with our bodily aliment, even so does it 

 seem to be with our mental pabulum. The Spirit 

 of Truth may inspire the writer, but the Eather of 

 Lies, the Author of confusion, steps into the book- 

 manufactory, " les diables sont dechaiues dans 

 cette maison la," and the careful brain-work is all 

 marred by the mechanics who convert it into the 

 commercial article. 



In poor Tom Hood's immortal ballad, we are 

 told how the iron-clad virtue of the good St. 

 Anthony was proof against all the emissaries of 

 Satan, until at last one of them came as a true 

 daughter of Eve, "and the good old Saint forgot 

 his age." Had Beelzebub ever written for the 

 press, and experienced the inevitable torments 

 which ensue, he would have inveigled the patient 

 recluse into scribbling "a paper," perhaps for a 

 natural history publication (the saints of old are 

 said to have been very familiar with the epizoa), 

 and then have sent a printer's-devil to him with a 

 proof-sheet ; in less than two minutes St. Anthony's 

 fire would have blazed out in bad language. 



With a view to helping our junior readers to 

 learn how to skim the sea, and to identify the com- 

 mon things which are almost certain to be taken in 

 the towing-net during the autumn, I gave them last 

 month a simple account of one of my own trips. 

 I described briefly the creatures which I actually 

 caught in one hour; I told them where to find fuller 

 particulars concerning them; andj with no small 

 amount of labour and care, I prepared twenty-one 

 drawings to illustrate my story: and I had a notion, 



if the tale of the towing-net proved welcome to the 

 uninitiated for whom it was intended, of gossiping 

 in the same style about "the dredge" and "the 

 trawl " when their respective seasons came round ; 

 " mais il faut que le diable s'en mele." Woe is me ! 

 I corrected the press, I numbered and named each 

 woodcut, but the sons of Sheitan must needs have 

 their frolic ; I had ventured to mention (p. 197) 

 certain defects in the figures of Cydippe given in 

 many works, and I presented an improved portrait 

 of her with her mouth iu the right place. Now here 

 was a chance for them not to be missed ; they 

 jumped at it; banishing the vera effigies of the 

 crystal sea-nymph to p. 201, there— oh insult to 

 injury — they called her by the ugly name of a vile 

 sea-slug, Polycera Lessonii, mentioned in the text 

 thereabouts; while into the space in p. 197 they 

 dabbed the likeness of the miserable gasteropod, 

 and underneath it printed " Cydippe." By another 

 misadventure, the letter a, fig. 176, which ought to 

 have marked the buccal arms (the leaf-like expanded 

 lips below the cross formed by the canals, c, c), has 

 slipped down out of its place, and got entangled 

 with the threadlike marginal tentacles which fringe 

 the lower edge of the umbrella. 



Any readers of Sciexce-Gossip who preserve 

 their copies, will, I trust, correct these diableries 

 with a fine pen, instead of binding up a bundle of 

 absurdities. 



It is a misfortune to be thin-skinned ; to write 

 for the press one need be a Pachyderm : but we 

 must not be too severe upon our typographic staff, 

 we cannot do without them. Gentlemen, I bow to 

 you. :< Quand on a besoin du Diable, on lui dit, 

 Monsieur." 



Bury Cross, Gosport. J. Y. Holland. 



LOCAL NAMES OE PLANTS. 



A SHROPSHIRE farmer, appealing the other 

 -£*- clay against the valuation of his farm— a 

 farmer, I should premise, of the old school— was 



particularly careful to point out the bad properties 

 of a certain field, and wound up the account by say- 

 ing, " Why it brings nowt but snizzle grass and 



hardyeds." Knowing the field, curiosity led me to 

 look out for the " snizzle grass," which I found in 

 multitudes of the turfy tussocks of Aira caespitosa ; 

 while the " hardyed " of our bucolic friend proved 

 to be, as I suspected, Centaurea nigra, the globose 

 heads of which are hard enough to justify the 

 farmer's designation. Not long afterwards, hearing 

 some individuals of the same calling discussing the 

 merits of some "stiff" soil, one exclaimed, "It's 

 full of the devil's currycomb." "Yes," said 

 another, "and the fellows always throw up the 

 beggar's needle." On inquiry, I found the ominous 

 name of " devil's currycomb " was the farmer's ap- 



