HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



117 



officinalis. A double variety of this I found in a 

 hedgerow in a field some years ago. The new branch 

 line of the Great Eastern Railway to Alexandra 

 Palace now runs over the spot, so it exists, unfor- 

 tunately, no longer. This was the only place in 

 Tottenham and Edmonton, &c, districts, where it 

 has, I believe, been found. — J. IV., Tottenham. 



Hawks, Owls, and the Game Laws. — The 

 following letter, which we commend to the notice of 

 our readers, has recently appeared in the " Suffolk 

 Chronicle," signed "A Farmer." " A few years ago a 

 pair of common barn owls built their nest and hatched 

 four young ones on the false ceiling of my house, a 

 thatched one. Becoming troublesome on account of 

 the noise they made in the night, I had them removed 

 to my stable loft, when, noticing one evening the 

 many times the old birds went to and fro and always 

 with something in their claws, I had the curiosity to 

 go and see the next morning, when judge of my 

 surprise on finding nine rats and mice of various 

 sizes, one of them a full grown water rat, and three 

 small birds of the hedge-sparrow kind, left over from 

 their last night's feast. Of course after this I went 

 many times to see what their food was : it was always 

 the same, but not so many as I saw the first time. 

 Not a sign of any description did I see, during the 

 time the young ones were fed by the old birds, of any 

 kind of game. Now, sir, I must leave you and your 

 readers to judge of the vast quantity of vermin those 

 birds cleared off during the rearing of their young, and 

 yet those birds are shot by all game preservers 

 because they are supposed to kill game. It would be 

 far wiser to fine a man for shooting an owl than 

 killing a rabbit. As regards game, after twenty 

 years' experience in farming, I believe the common 

 bain rat to be more destructive to young partridges 

 and pheasants than all the birds of prey and weasel 

 kind of animal put together. I have lost a great 

 many ducks and chickens just after hatching, and 

 always traced them to rats. The last time we had 

 eleven young ducks taken in two nights from coops. 

 I trapped three large rats and lost no more ducks 

 that summer. Another instance. We had a hen and 

 chickens a month old in a meadow close by the house. 

 I saw a great commotion amongst them, and on going 

 to the spot found one chicken killed and a large rat 

 going to the hedge which I killed. Now this, I have 

 no doubt, is many farmers' experience. The infer- 

 ence I draw is this, that if they kill young fowls they 

 will kill young game. When in the summer they go 

 into the fields and breed there is nothing but green 

 corn for them to feed on, then is the time they prey 

 on young birds. I have many times noticed the old 

 birds losing nearly all their young ones, but I was a 

 long time finding the cause. I should like in con- 

 clusion to say a word for the common mousehunt and 

 weasel. I have had them about my stackyard and 

 premises and seen them amongst my fowls many 

 times, but never saw them or had reason to believe 

 that they ever killed any. Yet those useful little 

 animals are destroyed wherever met with by game- 

 keepers and others. I often wonder how long an in- 

 telligent people will submit to those selfish Game 

 Laws, which give men the power to destroy every 

 animal or bird useful to the farmer, besides showing 

 great ignorance of natural history." 



Comparative Anatomy of the Eye.— I shall 

 be glad if any readers of Science-Gossip will kindly 

 inform me of publications wherein I may find informa- 

 tion respecting the comparative anatomy of the eye. 

 I will return postage for any communication. — 

 Richard Bangay, M.D. 



Botanist's Portable Collecting Press. — 

 Any botanist who has tried the above press, might 

 confer a favour on other botanists, now the botanical 

 season is approaching, by stating whether it supplies 

 a need which has long been felt, especially in holiday 

 rambles, of some simple contrivance for the preserva- 

 tion of specimens on the spot. — J. R. M. 



Metropolitan Societies, &c, their Meet- 

 ings. — As the secretary of a suburban microscopical 

 society, I have often met with considerable difficulty 

 in arranging for meetings, especially soirees, so as to 

 avoid clashing with the meetings of other societies, 

 the dates of which are frequently unknown beyond 

 their own circle of members. To this want of infor- 

 mation amongst neighbouring institutions respecting 

 each other's arrangements, I presume, is due the 

 fact that in the course of the winter months, we are 

 sometimes invited to exhibit at three or four soirees 

 in about as many weeks, and then hear of no more 

 throughout the season. This and other considera- 

 tions point to the conclusion, that there should be 

 some means of making each society acquainted with 

 the others' movements, and of promoting some unity 

 of action in regard to common interests. As a step 

 in this direction, I venture to suggest that some of 

 your space should be devoted, say in the January 

 number of each year, to the publication of a concise 

 account of the announcements and arrangements of 

 the London Microscopical and Natural History 

 Societies. I am convinced that such information 

 supplied in the magazine which has so extensive a 

 circulation amongst microscopists, would in a large 

 measure remedy the evil described, and be found 

 generally useful in other respects. — George Dannatt, 

 Hon. Sec. Greenwich Microscopical Society. 



I have had one of Crouch's Educational Micro- 

 scopes since Christmas, 1877, and within the last two 

 months have noticed that the field produced by the 

 J inch objective has become duller than usual. I have 

 taken it to pieces and rubbed it with chamois 

 leather, but with no avail. Could any of your readers 

 inform me as to the cause and remedy ? I had a sus- 

 picion that the evaporation produced by water objects 

 was the prime cause, but, if this is so, how could the 

 evaporation produce a permanent effect? — Walter 

 G. Woollcombe, Trinity College, Oxford. 



Watercresses. — Lovell, in his " Panbotanolo- 

 gia " (printed at Oxford in 1665) says of watercress 

 1 that its " temperature is hot and dry. Virtue : dissolved 

 in wine or milk, it healeth the scurvy, &c." An eminent 

 medical man told me some years ago that the well- 

 known antiscorbutic properties of this plant are fur- 

 nished by the large quantity of iodine it contains. 

 The leaflets have often a bronzed appearance. Does 

 this arise from the presence of iodine ? — R. A., J Veiling- 

 ton, Shropshire. 



A Bicipital Anemone.— About two years ago a 

 dianthus in one of my tanks developed the above 

 peculiarity, and the second head is now hardly to be 

 distinguished from the original in size. If the animal 

 be fed by both, the food is seized by each separately, 

 and can be seen to enter the stomachic cavity ; if fed 

 by one its course can be similarly followed ; but 

 whether fed by one or both, there is during digestion 

 the usual enlargement and display of tentacles by each 

 head. If one disk be touched, the other contracts 

 synchronously ; if, again, the base or pillar, both heads 

 instantly close. These few observations may interest 

 some of your readers who keep marine tanks. — 

 Y. L. B., Denmark Hill. 



