HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



185 



Eggs of the Great Auk. — Two eggs of this 

 extinct bird were recently sold by auction, by Mr. 

 J. C. Stevens, and fetched one hundred pounds and 

 one hundred and two guineas respectively. Lord 

 Lilford was the purchaser. The eggs were discovered 

 in an old private collection in Edinburgh. 



"Manual of the Infusoria." — This much 

 wanted and long expected work by Mr. W. Saville 

 Kent, F.L.S., is, we understand, now thoroughly 

 completed. We have been favoured with a sight of 

 some of the plates, which are exquisite examples of 

 engraving, and give us a capital idea of the trans- 

 parency which characterises the structures of most 

 Protozoa. The work will be issued in \os. 6d. parts. 

 The first part will be ready in October, and the 

 others will follow in monthly succession. There is 

 nothing before the public on this subject except 

 Pritchard's " History of the Infusoria," published in 

 1 84 1, and which now sells at much more than the 

 original published price. Pritchard included desmids 

 and diatoms among the Infusoria ! No other living 

 naturalist is-so capable of bringing out a work of this 

 kind as Mr. Saville Kent, and there can be no doubt 

 as to the value of the expected manual. 



Agriculture in America. — The manner in 

 which the highest intelligence is brought to bear upon 

 everything in which our Yankee cousins engage must 

 be one of the principal causes of their national 

 success. We have received through Mr. W. C. 

 Le Due, Commissioner of Agriculture, his Report for 

 1877, published at the Government Printing Office, 

 Washington. It is a bulky volume of nearly 600 

 pages, amply illustrated where illustrations are 

 necessary, in which we have elaborate papers by the 

 State Entomologist on the insects which interfere 

 in any way with agricultural operations ; statistical 

 papers on every agricultural subject ; botanical 

 papers relating to various important plants, such as 

 the olive, maize, and sorghum ; others on cattle im- 

 provement, diseases of domestic animals, &c. When 

 our own agriculturists are as well supplied by our 

 own government with similar valuable information, 

 perhaps we shall not hear so much about American 

 competition. 



Arion ater.— Collectors of British Mollusca 

 may be interested to hear of Maidenhead as a locality 

 for the white variety of Arion ater. 1 have lately 

 taken five specimens after rain, in ditches and on 

 grass near Maidenhead. The slug is creamy white 

 with dark grey tentacles and a yellow fringe round 

 the entire length. I have also met with drab varieties 

 of the same species of different shades, as well as the 

 common black one. The neighbourhood of Maiden- 

 head is gravelly. I should be very glad to know if any 

 of your correspondents have seen this variety, and if 

 so in what districts, with what soil and on what sort 

 of vegetation. — Lionel E. Adams. 



Bee Culture. — The very general failure of bees, 

 scarcely any having survived the unfavourable season 

 of last year, leads to the supposition that in England 

 we are wanting in the knowledge of their treatment. 

 Mr. Balchin, a florist of Cliftonville, had thirteen well 

 stored hives in the spring of last year, but all of them 

 died, he believed, from the extreme severity of the 

 weather ; but on applying to Mr. Pettitt of the 

 "Agricultural Institute" at Dover, he stated that 

 the bees were not killed by the frost, but that it was 

 last summer that killed them, and not the winter. 

 There might have been food provided for them, but 

 as bees cannot take in food at a lower temperature 

 than 56 , the cold was too intense to remove it, and 

 they died of starvation. He tells me he has preserved 

 about seventy hives, by feeding them up well in 

 September or not later than October, which keeps 

 up their temperature, as they store up their food in 

 their cells. With plenty of food inside the hives 

 they never suffer from cold. He also says they 

 should never be fed during winter, for if they have 

 plenty of food inside they can bear any amount of 

 cold that we have in this country ; that a well-stored 

 hive is always warm inside, even in the coldest 

 weather, and that the only protection bees require 

 during the severe frost in England is to keep them 

 dry, and if they are well fed up in September, they 

 will never suffer from the cold. In the " Times " of 

 the first of July, it is stated that in Paris a person 

 keeps from eight to nine hundred hives, and yet 

 the winter temperature in Paris is usually lower than 

 in England. Mr. Pettitt says bees should be placed 

 where they get no afternoon sun. — T. B. IV., 

 Brighton. 



BOTANY. 



Automatic movements of a Fern. — Dr. Asa 

 Gray, in the " Coutler's Gazette " says : — Mr, E. J. 

 Loomis of the Nautical Almanac Office, Washing- 

 ton, recently showed me a phenomenon which I 

 suppose has never before been noticed, and which is 

 commended to the attention of botanists. A tuft of 

 Asplenium trichomanes gathered last autumn in the 

 mountains of Virginia is growing in his house in a 

 glass dish. About two months ago he noticed that 

 one of the fronds — a rather short and erect one, 

 which is now showing fructification — made quick 

 movements alternately back and forth in the plane 

 of the frond, through from 20 deg. to 40 deg. when- 

 ever the vessel was brought from its shaded situation 

 into sunlight or bright daylight. The movement 

 was more extensive and rapid when the frond was 

 younger. When I saw it on the 23rd of January its 

 compass was within 15 deg. and was about as rapid 

 as that of the leaflets of Desmodium gyrans. It was 

 more rapid than the second hand of a watch, but with 

 occasional stops in the course of each half vibration. 



