HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



93 



cussions, in which any member may take part. The 

 papers sometimes take the form of lectures or 

 demonstrations upon general questions of geological 

 importance, or upon certain groups of fossils ; being 

 always well illustrated by maps and diagrams, they 

 are thus of interest to all students of geology. The 

 methods adopted by the Association are well adapted 

 to meet the requirements of those who may, for the 

 first time, be directing their attention to geology ; 

 whilst the experienced geologist will be enabled, 

 both at the meetings and excursions, to add to his 

 own knowledge and impart it to others. The work 

 of the Association must especially commend itself to 

 students of science classes, or to those attending the 

 University Extension Lectures. Whilst laying much 

 stress on the practical means of acquiring a know- 

 ledge of geology, the Association does not underrate 

 the assistance to be derived from books ; and accor- 

 dingly have acquired, for the use of members, partly 

 by purchase and partly from gifts, a good geological 

 library, which is ever increasing. The library is 

 open for the exchange of books on the evenings of 

 meeting. By permission of the council of University 

 College, the members of the Association hold their 

 meetings in the spacious library of the College, thus 

 enabling them to carry on their work with a very 

 small subscription from members, the services of the 

 officers being entirely honorary. Members pay an 

 admission-fee of \os. and an annual subscription of 

 ios., or a composition-fee of £$. They receive free 

 by post the "Proceedings" and "Monthly Circu- 

 lars," and can obtain other publications of the 

 Association at a reduced price from the Secretary. 



"British Petrography." — Part 2 of this noble 

 work is even more attractively turned out than the 

 first. The work will be completed in twenty-five 

 parts. The present plates show augite-picrite, 

 hornblende-picrite, beautifully coloured, with key- 

 plates for the same. The text deals with the micro- 

 scopical structures of igneous rocks generally. We 

 congratulate Mr. Teall on the rapid success of his 

 undertaking. 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



The Shard-borne Beetle. — There is no reason 

 to suppose that any particular species is referred to 

 either by Collins in his "Ode to Evening "or by 

 Shakespeare in "Macbeth," " Cymbeline," and else- 

 where, although the former is probably describing 

 Melolontha vulgaris, or perhaps Gcotrnpes stcrcorarius. 

 " Shard" is derived from the Anglo-Saxon, "sceard," 

 meaning a fragment, e.g. of pottery, and is hence 

 applied to the wing-case of a beetle. — Sydney C. 

 Cockerell, Bedford Park. 



Venus chione var.— Among other shelis brought 

 me from Gibraltar by my friend the Rev. J. W. 

 Horsley was a pale grey variety of this species, 

 i orresponding in general appearance to the var. cine- 

 rca of Mactra stultorum. It entirely lacks the usual 



element of reddish-brown in its colouring. If it 

 should prove to be undescribed, cinerea would be 

 a suitable name. — Sydney C. Cockerell, Bedford Park. 



Abnormal Amceba. — Referring to the enormous 

 Amoeba found by Mr. Brayley and described in 

 Science-Gossip for January, I beg to say that one 

 day when pond-hunting in a moat which surrounded 

 my garden at Upminster I found a dozen or more 

 organisms exactly like the one which Mr. Brayley 

 describes. I took some of them in a bottle to the 

 Royal Microscopical Society, and asked the Assistant 

 Secretary to find out for me what they were. This, 

 however, he was unable to do ; and I then sent some 

 to the late Dr. W. B. Carpenter and asked him to 

 solve the problem. He replied that he believed 

 them to be the spores of one of the Myxomycetes, 

 which are figured in their amoeboid condition at page 

 388 of the last edition of " Carpenter on the Micro- 

 scope ; " the description is as follows: "Here and 

 there offshoots of the protoplasm are projected, and 

 again withdrawn, in the manner of the pseudopodia 

 of an Amoeba ; while the whole organism may be 

 occasionally seen to abandon the support over which 

 it had grown and to creep over neighbouring surfaces, 

 thus far resembling in all respects a colossal ramified 

 Amceba." In one of Professor Huxley's " Lay 

 Sermons," entitled " On the Physical Basis of Life," 

 is the following: "There is a living body called 

 ALthalntm septicum, which appears upon decaying 

 vegetable substances, and in one of its forms is 

 common upon the surfaces of tan-pits. In this 

 condition it is to all intents and purposes a fungus, 

 and formerly was always regarded as such ; but the 

 remarkable investigations of De Bary have shown 

 that in another condition the ^Ethalium is an actively 

 locomotive creature, and takes in solid matters, 

 upon which apparently it feeds, thus exhibiting the 

 most characteristic feature of animality." Sachs' 

 "Text-book of Botany," p. 276, has the following : 

 " When a spore is saturated with water it opens, and 

 the whole of its protoplasmic contents escape as a 

 roundish naked mass ; but after some minutes it 

 assumes another form, becomes long and pointed at 

 one end, where it is provided with long cilia ; it has 

 in fact developed into a swarm-pore, which is either 

 endowed with rotatory motion or creeps along, 

 changing its form like an Amoeba." Prantl and 

 Vine's "Text-book of Botany" has the following at 

 p. 31 : "Naked primordial cells, as, for instance, 

 swarm-pores and antherozoids, swim about in the 

 water in which they live, rotating at the same time 

 on their own axes. The so-called plasmodia of 

 Myxomycetes exhibit an amoeboid movement ; that 

 is, the naked mass of protoplasm continually changes 

 its outline, new protrusions are thrown out from the 

 central mass, whilst others are withdrawn, and it 

 thus moves slowly from place to place ; at the same 

 time a rapid motion of the granules within the mass 

 is going on." I would suggest to Mr. Brayley that 

 it is possible his find may be of the same character 

 as mine. — J. C. Havers, F.L.S., F.R.M.S. 



Starlings. — Huge flocks of starlings [Sturnus 

 vulgaris) were seen every evening during the month 

 of November, flying toward the west. They flew at 

 a great altitude, and from a distance looked like 

 immense clouds. Every morning they could be seen 

 returning towards the east, when they kept close to 

 the ground, rising a little to clear the hedges and 

 other obstacles which lay in their way, but dropping 

 as soon as they passed them, just skimming the face 

 of the land in their rapid flight. The morning flocks 

 were very much smaller than those seen in the 

 evenings, and, instead of huge dense masses like the 



