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HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



The Bee and Caterpillar. — A friend in co. 

 Tyrone states that she saw at harvest time, in a field 

 of oats, a wild bee carry off a caterpillar. Is this an 

 uncommon occurrence ? — Rev. S. A. Brenan, Glcndun 

 Lodge, Cushendun, co. Antrim. 



Sagacity of a Collie Dog. — Among the nu- 

 merous instances received of the sagacity of dogs 

 under certain peculiar circumstances, when intelli- 

 gence has been displayed equal to that of man, the 

 following instance which has just occurred in 

 Northumberland during the recent unexampled snow- 

 storm in that county will, I think, bear a favourable 

 comparison to any of them. On the morning of 

 Saturday, the 6th of March, a collie dog belonging 

 to Mr. Walter McDonald, farm steward, Ilverton, 

 near Wooler, displayed a remarkable amount of 

 sagacity, and rendered good service in probably 

 saving his master's life. It appears that a dam which 

 conveys water to the pond had been completely 

 blocked by the storm of Monday and Tuesday 

 previous ; and Mr. McDonald, accompanied by his 

 dog, had gone to the head of the dam, which is about 

 a mile distant, to ascertain what strength would be 

 required to clear this away for the free run of the 

 water. In making his way along a piece of sloping 

 ground he suddenly fell into a wreath of snow some 

 nine or ten feet deep. While engaged to free him- 

 self, the faithful collie seized him by the arm ; and, 

 seeing his master trying in vain to reach the branch 

 of a tree overhanging him, the dog instantly sprang 

 at the branch and, seizing it, held it down to his 

 master's grasp, who finally succeeded in obtaining a 

 firm footing. — Dipton Bam. 



Birds Singing at Night. — Just after the break- 

 up of the late frost, and on a mild and moonlight 

 night, as I was lying awake (time, 11.45 p.m.), a 

 blackbird gave out its well-known, quick, consecutive 

 notes, renewing them at intervals up to twelve o'clock, 

 immediately after which hour a thrush began to 

 sing most beautifully and joyously. Surely this is 

 very unusual so early in the year ? I can only conclude 

 that, the east winds having so long kept him silent, he 

 couldn't help himself, and thus serenaded his mate, 

 who, I fancy, was not far off, on her nest, telling of 

 "a good time coming," in the way of worms and 

 snails, in the morning. — Windsor Hambrough. 



The Violet. — I was surprised to notice the in- 

 accuracies in Mr. Hampden G. Glasspoole's paper on 

 "The Violet" in last May's number. I will deal 

 seriatim with the mistakes. I never heard of Io (not 

 la), a daughter of Atlas, being pursued by Apollo ; 

 probably Mr. Glasspoole must have been thinking of 

 Daphne, who was — as we read in Ovid's "Metamor- 

 phoses" (book i. 452) — turned into a laurel-tree (not 

 into a violet) to escape the love of Apollo. There 

 may be a myth about the metamorphosis of a woman 

 into a violet, but her name was certainly not Io. 

 Again, the Greek 'lov, " a violet," has nothing to do 

 with 'I«, the proper name (there is no such 

 woman as 'lwv (not 'lov) in Grecian mythology. 

 There is, however, a form Ion in Latin, occurring 

 only once, I believe — in the " Aulularia" of Plautus 

 (3, 6, 20). The iota in 'lov, "a violet," is short, 

 while it is long in 'Io> , the proper name. There is 

 no work of Aristophanes known as "The Seasons" ; 

 as I do not at present possess an Aristophanes with 

 an " Index Vocabulorum," I cannot discover the 

 passage quoted by Mr. Glasspoole. The wine made 

 by the Romans from violets was called " violatum 

 vinum " ; there is no such substantive in Latin as 

 "violatum." " Rosatum," not " rosaltum," is the 

 word for wine made from roses. I must accuse Mr. 



Glasspoole of plagiarism, as he has copied, word for 

 word, the all but last paragraph of his paper from 

 "The Treasury of Botany," pi. 1218 — I mean the 

 paragraph beginning, " Professor Buckman states," 

 to " the troublesome little insect to be hatched." I 

 hope Mr. Glasspoole will forgive me finding fault 

 with his otherwise interesting account of the violet. — 

 C. Donovan, jun., Westview, Glandore, Leap, co. Cork. 



Garden Slugs. — On April 5th I found beneath 

 some old stones in a garden two young Arion ater, 

 (about the size of Arion hortensis), which were white. 

 Whilst examining them along with some other slugs 

 on a table, I happened to place the two white Arion 

 ater on a green leaf, and in a few minutes they 

 became of a greenish colour. Has any one else made 

 any similar observations in regard to slugs ? Along 

 with the Arion ater I found two full-grown Arion 

 hortensis with the foot a deep orange, and the entire 

 body and mantle of a dull orange, with the usual 

 black lateral bands. I also examined two Limax 

 agrestis, var. nigra, which had been found in a garden 

 at Wakefield by Mr. J. Wilcock. — George Roberts, 

 Lofthouse. 



Tail of Slow-Worm Sloughing off. — A 

 slow-worm which I have kept since April 1884 has 

 just died ; on March 28th the tail scales were very 

 rough, and appeared erect. April 2nd I found the 

 tail had sloughed off, and the next day the animal 

 died. I shall be glad if readers of Science-Gossip 

 can throw any light on so singular a death. Perhaps 

 I ought to mention that in the same case there is 

 kept a frog which I reared from the spawn, and a 

 toad. — Geo. E. Turner, Winterborne Stick/and, 

 Blandford. 



Flight of Bees. — In answer to Mark Antony's 

 third query at p. 94, 1 must say that the idea of a bee 

 flying in circles to and from the hive, by which he 

 must mean all the time it is on the wing, is quite 

 new to me, and is, I think, incorrect. A bee, as 

 soon as it first leaves the hive, circles round and 

 round till it has well marked in its eye the spot it 

 has just come out of, and then it flies straight away in 

 search of flowers ; and when it is on the return journey, 

 laden with sweets and perhaps pollen, it also flies in 

 what likewise has passed into a proverb as " a bee 

 line." In late autumn and early spring, when bees 

 get a chance of a mild day, they take a short flight 

 to cleanse themselves of foeces, and this certainly is 

 always in a circle. But let any one stand between a 

 field of white clover in bloom and a hive of bees, and 

 he will see how truly go-ahead is their journey on 

 the wing.— H. W. Lett, ALA. 



Bird Gossip. — The severe weather, with continued 

 frost, which prevailed nearly all through the first 

 three weeks of March, played sad havoc amongst our 

 thrush tribe. Our fields and woods through these 

 weeks were thickly populated by thrushes— par- 

 ticularly the song-thrush and redwing ; the fieldfare 

 and missel-thrush coming next in proportion. The 

 blackbird seems to have been less numerous ; even a 

 pair in my garden were seldom seen. This tends to 

 show that blackbirds as a rule went farther south, or 

 that the main body of migrants were later than the 

 other thrushes in returning, and did not get caught 

 in the late spell of winter. Many deaths occurred 

 during these few weeks, principally amongst the song- 

 thrushes, the death-rate of the redwing and fieldfare 

 ranking next, while a few missel-thrushes also suc- 

 cumbed—it may be equally according to numbers ; 

 but they are much less plentifully met with than the 

 other thrushes. The deaths appear in all cases to 



