HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



3i 



something like the supposed adulteration of tea with 

 iron filings, which was so gravely and repeatedly 

 asserted to be a'widespread commercial villany, until 

 (in 1S73) I showed that in China iron filings would 

 cost more than tea leaves, and that the adulteration, 

 if practised on this side, to the asserted extent would 

 demand four or five million pounds of selected fine 

 iron filings per annum, sufficient demand to produce 

 an extensive and very visible traffic to London, which 

 is the tea port of Britain. The fact is, that iron 

 filings are practically unsaleable from absence of 

 demand. Firework makers use a few steel filings. 



OBJECTS OF INTEREST IN OUR PIT 

 DISTRICT. 



A STRANGER travelling through our district 

 would meet with no rugged scenery, or 

 headlong waterfall. For a radius of a few miles, he 

 would find he was entirely free from any mountain, 

 and a level piece of country would stretch before 

 him. Looking eastward, he would have a clear sea 

 view of the sea only a few miles distant. Turning 

 in any other direction, he would see numerous small 

 plantations mixed with farm houses, and a few 

 villages teeming with a busy population. If he were 

 fond of botany, he would find some veiy interesting 

 plants. If an ornithologist, he would see some fine 

 rookeries, as well as flocks of starlings. The latter 

 used to be a migratory bird, but has now, for several 

 years, remained all the winter through. Often have I 

 stood in the summer evenings watching their 

 movements. Magpies he would not see, as they 

 have for more than twenty years entirely deserted our 

 district. The conduct of our youngsters, I fancy, will 

 have been the cause of their desertion. The ornitho- 

 logist would only on very rare occasions meet with any 

 blackcaps, as they are with us fast dying out. Two 

 species of wagtail stay with us long after the 

 migratory birds have left us. A lover of entomology 

 would meet with the two garden white, red, 

 admiral, small tortoiseshell, orange tip, meadow 

 brown, painted lady, the small copper, and occa- 

 sionally the peacock. The small streams are well 

 stocked with small fishes. I give an extract I once 

 sent to a Newcastle paper on our stickleback. One 

 fine summer evening, the sky very clear, the air 

 quiet, the scenery calm and peaceful, and all nature 

 appearing at rest, I took a stroll by the side of a 

 gentle stream. In my company was a gentleman 

 who was very anxious to be shown some nests of 

 stickleback, as he had never before seen anything 

 of the kind. As we wandered along, shoals of 

 stickleback darted rapidly past us, for, with their 

 keen sense of sight, they soon recognised us on the 

 banks as strangers. We sat down on the bank, and the 

 fish soon returned, and began their usual pranks. The 



males took their places and stood guard over thei r 

 charmed circles, like the Roman soldiers of old went 

 on doing their duty, and ready to die rather than be 

 driven from their posts. My friend expressed much 

 surprise to find all those having the prettiest colour to 

 be the worst tempered. " Yes," I said, " that is true, 

 but let us look at their motive. You see those little 

 raised mounds, with a round hole in the centre ; they 

 are nests, and the coloured stickleback you see close by 

 are the males guarding their precious homes. The 

 males have the places to select, the nests to build 

 and to keep in order, the females coming when all 

 is right, to deposit their spawn, and, unless the nests 

 were closely guarded by the males, not only against 

 the attack of other fishes, but even against the 

 parents themselves, as the ova or spawn is always a 

 precious meal to fishes, they would soon be destroyed." 

 Their colour I have found to be mostly due to their 

 valour in fighting, the bolder they are the more fierce 

 they look, and the more courage they show in 

 defending their nests the more colour they get. I 

 have frequently seen females go from nest to nest, 

 depositing ova without being molested. Yet, at the 

 same time, I have seen them chased away, when I 

 much fancied they had not any ova to deposit. The 

 nests I could see were repeatedly visited by the 

 males. 1st. To see the nests are kept in order, and 

 to make fast any loose material by a gummy substance 

 which they have the power of discharging. 2nd. The 

 eggs of the female have to be fertilised by the males ; 

 without this the fecundity of the eggs would not take 

 place. Now these eggs, and those of snails, frogs, &c, 

 that I have examined, are the same shape as the eggs 

 of birds, when viewed under the microscope. As I 

 was in want of a nest for my home aquarium, my 

 friend insisted on taking one home. He stretched 

 himself across the stream with his head close to the 

 nest which he wanted, and which was only a few inches 

 under the water. As he listened very attentively, he 

 fancied he heard something moving. Presently the 

 whole brood of young ones came away, and so 

 fascinated were we with the sight before us, that a 

 few seconds passed away before we could speak to 

 each other again. He took off his round felt hat, 

 and indented the crown so as to hold about a pint of 

 water. Into this miniature vessel he placed the 

 whole shoal of young. This mass of life, so newly 

 ushered into existence, was to us the most interesting 

 of all sights we had before witnessed. I have found 

 these last few years, that that pretty little fish the 

 minnow fails to keep its own in the struggle for 

 existence, in some of our very small streams. Where 

 it used to be plentiful, it has now entirely died out. 

 They fail to stand the repeated attacks of the 

 pugnacious sticklebacks. The traveller in our 

 country would pass acres of land, scarcely fit to graze 

 a single animal. On his route he would notice a 

 peculiar looking hill, or heap, varying in different 

 shades of colour, mingled with patches of the 



