HA RD WICKE'S SCIENCE- G OSSIP. 



93 



owners. One Sunday morning while the governess 

 was out, having gone to chapel, the woman who 

 stayed at home with her husband and her cat, called 

 the attention of her good man to the conduct of the 

 two animals. "There is that Tibbie, she is a good 

 cat, a Methodist like her mistress : she does not go 

 down on Sunday to get her meat ; but that worldly- 

 minded little wretch of mine, Tottie, down he will 

 rush just as if it were a weekday." Her husband 

 answered : " Do not talk so silly ; I am not going to 

 believe that a cat knows the difference between 

 Sunday and weekday." She promptly answered : 

 " Come along and see Tibbie sitting at the top of the 

 stairs waiting for her mistress to come home." 

 Just as they came to that interesting point, Tibbie's 

 mistress appeared, and the matter was referred to her 

 for explanation. This was given in a statement that 

 the meat for Tibbie's dinner had been already placed 

 in a drawer where the cat could smell it, and knew 

 by happy experience, that it would be hers on the 

 return of her mistress, for whom she waited. The 

 devout admirer of her neighbour's cat would not yet 

 be talked out of her belief in its religiousness, 

 affirming that it was the custom of Tibbie to sing 

 over her meat while Tottie swore. Tibbie was 

 afterwards taken by her mistress to live in the 

 country, where she acquired so much knowledge of 

 botany as to be able to distinguish accurately be- 

 tween Phascolus vulgaris and Phaseolus mitltlflorus, 

 liking well to eat the former, but constantly refusing 

 the latter. This capacity for distinguishing between 

 the pods of one species and another by taste, she 

 retained after having become blind, when she was 

 led about the fields by a daughter, whom she had 

 brought up to keep the fifth commandment as well 

 as she had herself kept the fourth. — John Gibbs. 



Affection of Monkeys. — The following instance 



of the affection of monkeys for their young may interest 



some of your readers. Yesterday I was passing a 



bridge which carries the Bhopal railway over the 



Betwa river, and saw a large number of black-faced 



"langur" monkeys" upon it. This morning, passing 



again the same place, I found that one of a gang of 



workmen had found a young monkey near the line, 



and had caught it. He also discovered the body of 



its mother which had been run over by a train during 



the night and been killed. A large male monkey, 



however, followed the man when he took up the 



young one, and when I saw the latter, it was 



shrieking and struggling to get to the old monkey 



(evidently its father), who was seated on the rails 



about thirty yards from us, eagerly looking for the 



release of the youngster. I told the man to release 



the young one, when it ran off at once to the old 



one, who embraced and fondled it, and eventually 



ran off with it, holding it with one arm against its 



breast. I was much struck with the sight, especially 



as the old monkey was a male. — G. D. Marston. 



BOTANY. 



" The Dictionary of Plant Names."— We are 

 genuinely sorry to find that in our notice of Messrs. 

 Britten and Holland's splendid work "The Dictionary 

 of Plant Names," we (through a slip of memory) gave 

 the credit of the publication to the "Early English 

 Text Society." The latter society does not require 

 any extraneous aid of this kind. We ought to have 

 assigned the publication to the " English Dialect 

 Society," whose headquarters are in Manchester, 

 and whose indefatigable Hon. Sec. is Mr. J. H. 

 Nodal, The Grange, Heaton Moor, near Stockport. 

 The high character, the extensive labour and learning, 

 and the immense usefulness of " The Dictionary of 

 Plant Names," makes it important that the right 

 introducers should be known. 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



Rearing Bombyx rubi. — In his article on 

 " Lepidopterists' Work last August" Mr. Finch 

 states that the larvae of the fox-moth may be 

 carried through the winter by means of a refrigerator. 

 May I inform your readers of a plan, advocated by 

 Mr. Robson, of Hartlepool, a few years ago, for 

 obtaining the perfect insects of this species without 

 any such troublesome process as refrigeration, a 

 plan which I have found very successful ? Select the 

 largest and most full-grown larvae to be found, and 

 placing each in a separate two-ounce chip-box, put 

 the boxes containing them inside the kitchen or 

 parlour fender, leaving them there day and night. 

 In the course of a week or two the continuous heat 

 of the fire will have persuaded the larvae that spring 

 has come ; they will spin their cocoons, and, if left in 

 this situation, the perfect insect will emerge during 

 the winter, at times as early as Christmas, or if 

 desired to obtain the females at the right time for 

 "calling," the boxes with the undisturbed cocoons 

 may be placed in an out-house or cellar through the 

 winter, and exposed to the hot sun during the later 

 spring months. I have frequently found the cocoons 

 on our Wallasey sand-hills, spun up among a tangle 

 of grass and Rosa splnoslsslma, and very tiresome 

 work it is for the hands collecting them, though the 

 rooks appear to find them quite readily, and tearing 

 open the cocoon they devour the pupa, which they 

 evidently consider a bonne bouche. Should the larva 

 not have completed the change to the pupal con- 

 dition, this is also pulled out of the cocoon, but not 

 otherwise interfered with. — John W. Ellis, F.E.S., 

 Liverpool. 



Goldsmith, etc. — It would seem after all that 

 Goldsmith did actually say the gudgeon had no air- 

 bladder ; this mistake is on a par with several others 

 he made. It was precisely the same with the arts ; 

 he had a visionary project that some time or other, 

 he would go to Aleppo, in order to acquire a 

 knowledge, as far as might be, of any arts peculiar 

 to the East and introduce them into Britain. Dr. 

 Johnson said, "of all men, Goldsmith is the most 

 unfit to go out upon such an inquiry ; for he is 

 utterly ignorant of such arts as we already possess ; 

 he would bring home a grinding-barrow, which you 



