HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



161 



fast with two men standing on its back Jas when 

 only carrying its own weight. 



Insect Collections. — The influence of different 

 colours of glass on collections of insects has been 

 investigated by M. Capronnier, of the Entomologi- 

 cal Society of Belgium, the object being to preserve 

 collections from the decolouration which the green 

 and carmine parts especially undergo iu daylight. 

 He operated with four tints of glass— yellow, 

 violet, green, and blue ; also with uncoloured glass. 

 It was found that yellow is the best preservative ; 

 after ninety days it was the only colour which left 

 carmine nearly quite intact. It is not an absolute 

 preservative, for at the end of this time the tint was 

 slightly altered. It seems that the only way, known 

 at present, of keeping collections absolutely intact 

 is to keep them in darkness. 



A Rich Collecting Ground foe Mollusca. — 

 During the month of April last, on a patch of ground 

 not more than two yards by six, in Roydhouse 

 Wood, on the Yorkshire estate of the Earl of 

 Dartmouth, situated about three miles from 

 Huddersfield, a friend and I collected living speci- 

 mens of the following species of mollusca, amongst 

 which will be seen that some are considered both 

 local and rare, viz., Vitrina pellucida, Zonites 

 cellarius, Zonites alliarius, Zonites alliarius var. 

 viridula, Zonites nitidulus, Zonites nitidulus var. 

 nitens, Zonites purus, Zonites purus var. margari- 

 tacea, Zonites radiatulus, Zonites radiatulus var. 

 viridescenta-alba, Zonites excavatus, Zonites crystal- 

 linus, Zonites fulvus, Helix lamellata, Helix aculeata, 

 Helix fusca, Helix rotundata, Helix pygmeea, Vertigo 

 pygmcea, Vertigo edentula, Cochlicopa lubrica, 

 Carychium minimum, and Acme lineata. In addi- 

 tion to the above list, we also find several of the 

 Slug family ; but I have yet not paid sufficient at- 

 tention to the orders of Arion and Limax to enable 

 me to include them in the foregoing list, for fear of 

 misnaming them. I shall be glad if any other 

 amateur conchologist could furnish present locali- 

 ties where Helix lamellata is found. — Lister Peace. 



Snake eating Snake. — Happening to read an 

 article in your May number of last year, on this 

 subject, and also on page 160, in the year 1873, it 

 has been suggested to me by one of your sub* 

 scribers that the following incident may be of 

 interest. I am in a position to affirm that snakes 

 not only devour their young, or their own species, 

 when in a state of confinement, but that the same 

 thing also happens when they are at large. It was 

 a little after midsummer, that is about the month of 

 January, during some of our hottest weather, ther- 

 mometer standing at about 110° Fahr. in the shade, 

 I was working in a patch of sweet potatoes on the 

 clearing, when I saw a " whip-snake," about 3 feet 

 in length, close to my foot ; of course, I instantly 



turned, and struck it with a hoe, which I had in my 

 hand, but it did not appear very lively, or show 

 fight. On looking at it, it appeared to have a tail at 

 each end, but, on closer examination, I found the 

 tail of a second snake protruding from the mouth 

 of the first, whose body as far down as the stomach 

 reaches appeared considerably distended. I placed 

 my right foot on the tail of the living snake, and, 

 seizing the protruding tail with my left hand, I 

 pulled till I had drawn a second entire snake from 

 the mouth of the living one, it having been 

 swallowed head first. The second snake being as 

 near as possible the same length as the first one, it 

 was unable to contain it all at one time, the head 

 was already partly digested, and, no doubt, as 

 digestion went on and made more room, the re- 

 mainder would have been drawn in, and in its turn 

 also digested. This was at a time when there was 

 plenty of food of every description for snakes to be 

 found close by. We all know that the poison of a 

 snake is contained in a small bag under the fang in 

 each jaw, but does not the fact that one snake 

 can digest the head of another, containing this 

 poison-bag, go far to prove that the poison can pass 

 harmlessly through the stomach, and that the only 

 danger is when the poison is mixed directly with 

 the blood? These snakes are a very favourite food 

 of our aborigines, but they are very careful to 

 decapitate them directly they are caught, and they 

 will never eat a snake unless they have killed it 

 themselves, and are sure that in its death struggle, 

 it did not turn and bite itself, which often happens. 

 — A. J. A., Brisbane. 



BOTANY. 



Tiie Origin of Common Plant-names.— I 

 think I can give your correspondent in the May 

 number of this journal, Mr. W. G. Piper, the in- 

 formation he desires respecting the Guernsey local 

 name of the common Goosegrass or Bedstraw 

 {Galium aparine). The word "Lakoo" exactly 

 represents in English the sound of the name, but it 

 is incorrectly spelt,— if 1 may be allowed to say so, 

 of a word which forms part of an unwritten patois. 

 This peculiar dialect, of which the principal in- 

 gredient is old Norman Trench, is ungoverned by 

 any rules of grammar or pronunciation, and many of 

 the words are so distorted as to be totally unin- 

 telligible to any one but a native; for the patois of 

 the adjacent islands, Jersey, Alderney, and Sark, all 

 differ more or less one from another. The French 

 word queue, a tail, is locally pronounced quoue (or 

 koo), and La quoue, the name of the common Bed- 

 straw, simply means " the tail." Let me endeavour 

 to explain how this curious appellation has been 

 given. On the 1st of April in each year the 

 Guernsey children divert themselves by pinning or 



