HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



"5 



duced. In the place of these, I have lately made 

 known the discovery last year of the true Silene 

 Gallica (L.) at Gallows Hill, St. Helier's, where I 

 found it growing with 6". qiiiuqueviclnera, which is 

 •only probably a variety of it. This is new to our 

 British lists. And I have also put on record the fact 

 that the large quaking grass (Briza maxima, L.) is 

 becoming rapidly naturalized all over Jersey, but 

 especially near La Haule, St. Aubin's — not far from 

 the Ranunculus charophyllos station. We must 

 expect, as the march of building extends along St. 

 Aubin's Bay, very soon to lose Allium sphicrocephalmn, 

 and other varieties of that kind : and we hope, there- 

 fore, as some compensation, that further varieties may 

 be detected in these islands. — J. Cosmo Melvill. 



HOW TO PRESERVE THE COLOURS OF FLOWERS. — 

 If K. B. L. would after fastening a wire to each stem, 

 dip the flowers separately in a clear weak solution of 

 Gicmmi Arabicum, and well dry suspended on a line, 

 he would find them covered with a glazing interfering 

 very slightly with their beauty, at the same time pre- 

 venting the air from destroying the colour. 



GEOLOGY. 



Correlation of the Irish, British, and 

 Continental Devonian Rocks. — At a recent 

 meeting of the Geological Society, the following 

 communication was read : — " On the Geological 

 Relations of the Rocks of the South of Ireland to 

 those of North Devon and other British and Conti- 

 nental Districts." By Professor Edward Hull, M.A., 

 LL.D., F.R.S., F.G.S., Director of the Geological 

 Survey of Ireland. In this paper the author, after 

 referring to his previous paper on the geological 

 age of the Glengariff beds ("Quarterly Journal 

 Geological Society," vol. xxxv. p. 699), in which 

 he showed that between them and the succeeding 

 Old Red Sandstone in the south of Ireland there 

 existed a very great hiatus, proceeded to compare 

 the sections of the rocks of the south of Ireland 

 with those of North Devon, and to show that 

 the hiatus in question is represented in the latter 

 locality by the whole of the Middle and Lower 

 Devonian rocks. He then discussed the relations of 

 the Devonshire rocks to those occurring north of the 

 Severn, in Scotland, and in Belgium ; and from this 

 review of the whole question he arrived at the fol- 

 lowing conclusions : — First, that there is only one 

 Old Red Sandstone properly so called — represented 

 in Devonshire by the Pickwell-Down Sandstones ; 

 in Ireland by the so-called Upper Old Red Sandstone, 

 including the Kiltorcan beds ; in Scotland by the 

 so-called Upper Old Red Sandstone ; and in Belgium 

 by the " Psammites du Condroz." Secondly, that 

 the so-called Old Red Sandstone of Herefordshire is 

 the estuarine representative of the Middle and Lower 



Devonians of Devonshire ; and that the so-called. 

 Lower Old Red Sandstone of Scotland, with its fish- 

 remains, is the lacustrine representative of the Upper 

 Silurian rocks. In conclusion the author discussed 

 the physical conditions under which these various 

 formations were deposited. 



East Kent Natural History Society. — At 

 the last meeting of this society, the president, 

 Colonel Cox, read a paper on certain siliceous fossils 

 of the chalk, illustrated by a magnificent collection 

 of fossil sponges, and their allies from the south coast, 

 principally collected and polished by himself. 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



Errors of Calculation. — In objecting to my 

 figures, why did Mr. Woolley stop at the "insects " 

 which would be eaten by birds, which form the food 

 of sparrow-hawks ? Why not go deeper into the 

 subject and take the various organisms which form 

 the food of the insects above mentioned, and even 

 further still, taking the lower organisms which con- 

 stitute their nourishment ? Then — in order to be 

 within the pale, we will assume, as did Mr. Woolley, 

 six times their own weight as food sufficient for a year 

 — he would have a grand total of 19,956,372 + 36 

 lbs., or 718,429,392 lbs. of food destroyed annually 

 by organisms, which are eaten by other organ- 

 isms forming the food of insects which constitute the 

 main support of the redoubtable sparrow-hawk. 

 This immense total at id. per lb. (as assumed by Mr. 

 Woolley) would be worth, in round numbers, nearly 

 three millions of money sterling. Why stop here ? 

 Why not go further and further ? The vague notice 

 which Mr. Woolley publishes on my "statistics " are 

 so full of errors, that I scarce know where to begin 

 to rectify. He says, "Mr. Dealy presumes forme 

 that all the food of the sparrow-hawk consists of 

 sparrows." Nothing of the sort was ever either 

 uttered or written by me ! In] November's issue of 

 Science-Gossip, p. 246, are the words, "birds con- 

 stitute its exclusive food," birds not sparrows alone ; 

 again, on the same page is written, " Suppose each 

 to consume three birds, sparrows we will say," mind 

 the word "birds " is distinctly said again, meaning not 

 sparrows exclusively, but birds. The very instances 

 I quote (p. 246) bear me out in what I say, for of the 

 four birds dissected only one sparrow was discovered. 

 Again, because but one sparrow was discovered 

 among the four dissected birds, is there conclusive 

 evidence that one-fourth of the sparrow-hawk's food 

 consists of sparrows ? This is what Mr. Woolley 

 seems to think. Again, sparrows are not the only 

 birds which eat or otherwise destroy grain. According 

 to Mr. Woolley, the food of these insects, of which 

 so much has been said (p. 20, Jan., 19,956,372 lbs. 

 of insects' food at id. per lb. — over ,£83,000) is of 

 value to man, or in other words, these wanton insects 

 destroy or consume nothing of a detrimental character, 

 but merely live on the fat of the land to the extent of 

 ,£83,000 yearly. Mr. Woolley does not take into 

 account the many putrid and refuse matters which 

 are as banquets to numerous classes of insects, and 

 which if left to the action of the atmosphere would 

 become prolific centres of disease. Many, if not 

 most of the insects included under the 3,326,062 lbs. 

 (Mr. Woolley's letter, p. 20, Jan.) act as the scavengers 

 of the earth and air. — Tom IV. Dcaly. 



