HARD WICKE ' S S CIENCE- G SSI P. 



213 



PAriLlo machaon. — All entomologists will read 

 with pleasure the capital papers by Mr. Finch, but 

 surely he makes a mistake in saying of the larvae of 

 P. Machaon that " they cannot be reared away from 

 their marshy home." I have bred several of this fine 

 insect, and have obtained, with ordinary care, good 

 results both as to quantity and quality of the imagos. 

 It is not necessary to supply them with either 

 Pencedanum palustre or Heracleum sphondylium, but 

 in captivity they feed freely on the leaves of the 

 carrot andthrive on them. — L. Surrage. 



Dormouse and Honeysuckle.— Often have I 

 ployed " Bo peep " with " Mus Avellanarius " round 

 the bole of a sugared tree, but never till the other 

 day, and that a hot one, did I know that the sun was 

 no obstacle to him in his pursuit after sweets. 

 Seeing my daughter beckoning my attention to a fine 

 honeysuckle bush in our garden, I approached 

 warily, and saw a very fine specimen of the above 

 running up and down every stem that bore the pretty 

 red trumpet-shaped buds, and busily nibbling away 

 the nectar-hiding tips thereof. Not in the least timid, 

 he allowed me to approach and watch his modus 

 operandi. Seizing in succession each trumpet bud 

 near to its point of attachment, and pulling it down, 

 it passed it through his little jaws till the tip was 

 reached, which he bit away, and, with black eyes 

 sparkling with pleasure, regaled himself on the 

 nectar. It was a pretty sight, and, in another sense, 

 so was my honeysuckle an hour or so afterwards. 

 My visions as to takes of bright-winged " Sphingidoe " 

 were over. " Porcellus " and " Elpenor " would 

 only turn up the proboscis at my despoiled and rifled 

 "Louicera." " Convolvuli " (by-the-bye I had one 

 off it this time last year, and he did hum with his 

 wings while hovering) would have said "Not for 

 Joe." I might easily have shaken the dear little 

 thief into a butterfly net, but . . . well ! he was too 

 much of a darling, {loquente filia). — Windsor 

 Hambrough, Crookkam, Farnham. 



Twin Trees. — The twin trees near Leominster 

 mentioned by Mr. Howarth Ashton in the July 

 number of the Science-Gossip must, I think, be 

 very similar to a double tree at Eridge, a village 

 about z\ miles from Tunbridge Wells ; in this case 

 the trees are an oak and a beech, which have evidently 

 grown up side by side from their earliest infancy. 

 The steins grow together as one trunk, and it is not 

 until the difference in the texture of the barks is 

 noticed that one sees that there are really two stems ; 

 they grow together for five or six feet, and then 

 separate. The oak is .considerably the smaller of 

 the two. A rough idea of the section of this tree 

 may be formed by drawing a circle the size of 

 half-a-crown, and another the size of a shilling, the 

 centre of which is on the circumference of the 

 other, then rub out the segments of the circles 

 which are between the points where the circles 

 cut one another. I do not think that there is any 

 interchange or flow of sap from one tree to the other. 

 There is another curious tree in this neighbourhood, 

 in Frant Churchyard. A fine, but ancient oak tree, 

 has a birch tree growing out of it. In this case the 

 birch seed has evidently germinated where a branch 

 of the oak had been broken off eight or nine feet from 

 the ground. The birch is now some six or eight 

 inches in diameter. The oak is partly decayed 

 internally, so that the roots of the birch reach the 

 ground inside the tree. — G. S. S., Tunbridge Wells. 



A Queer Fish. — Some little time ago, coming 

 across a fish with a very singular modification of, or 

 appendage to the organ of sight, I made mental note 



to seek some account of it. That which roused my 

 curiosity is briefly this — The side of the head of the 

 fish was covered by a glassy layer, extending, if my 

 memory serves me, from near the lips in front to near 

 the edge of the gill covers behind, and from near the 

 vertea of the head to and along the inferior lateral 

 border of the head below. The glassy layer passed 

 smoothly unbroken over the orbit and its contents, 

 which were near the centre of the layer. With the 

 cook's huge knife I dissected it from the side of the 

 head, and showed it to be in shape, and fashioning a 

 roughly oval meniscus with sharp edges, thickening 

 towards the margin of the orbit, where, at its 

 thickest, it was about a quarter of an inch thick. At 

 the margin of the orbit it was sharply excavated, and 

 a nearly hemispherical hollow formed in its deeper 

 (under) surface. At the time of examination I took 

 this transparent laurella to be the cornea, and the 

 excavation to be the anterior chamber recessed in the 

 cornea for the spherical lens which lay beneath in 

 the orbit when I had removed the laurella. I had no 

 time to make anything but a hurried examination, 

 and made sure of finding an account of this, to me, 

 new and singular modification of the cornea. 

 Giinther, "The Study of Fishes," p. 113, says, "In 

 all fishes the general integument passes over the eye 

 and becomes transparent where it enters the orbit ; 

 sometimes it simply passes over the orbit, sometimes 

 it forms a circular fold." That the integument, in a 

 restricted sense, passes over the eye of all higher 

 animals, as the anterior transparent epithelium of the 

 cornea I knew, but I was not prepared to meet with 

 such a development and extension of this layer as 

 occurs in this fish, extending as it does, enormously 

 thickened far beyond the limits of the orbit. In this 

 fish then, the cornea is convex and not flat, and 

 exceeds in superfices the sclerotic many times, for 

 the globus and orbit were not large. The eye can be 

 gifted with little if any movement, for the cornea is 

 not free to move, and hence, the eye is probably 

 without extrinsic muscles and with aborted motor 

 oculi nerve. — J. W. P. 



Spots on Sycamore Leaves. — Your corre- 

 spondent (J. Muir, p. 179) is mistaken in thinking 

 that the black spots on the leaves of the plane-tree 

 are caused by "drops of rain or dew acting as sun- 

 burners by condensing the solar rays." It is a fungus, 

 and a very common one — Rhytis?na acerinum, Fr. 

 (Maple, Rhytisma) — also named Melasmia acerina, 

 Lev. & B. & Br. A stage of it by some botanists has 

 been called Xyloma acerina. There are six British 

 species in the genus, one of which, R. salicenum, is 

 common on some willows. I have seen it plentiful 

 on both Salix ripens and Salix nigricans. — Andrew 

 Protherston, Kelso. 



Since writing above note, I see on p. 190, Hilderic 

 Friend has no doubt that the spots are due to Capno- 

 dium Footii, which is not very likely. But if your 

 correspondent would kindly send a specimen to Mr. 

 W. G. Smith, Dunstable, or Dr. Plowright, Kings 

 Lynn, or any other cryptogamic botanist, it would 

 be easily settled. — A. B. 



Bird Sounds. — In reply to the query from 

 C. C. S., in the July number of Science-Gossip, 

 I should say that the birds whose notes he hears are 

 the yellow-hammer and the night-jar respectively. 

 One cannot be certain, however, from the meagre 

 description given. — W. Finch, Jan., Nottingham. 



Toads and Frogs. — The note by F. G. S. is 

 very interesting, and well worth recording. I see 

 that the writer mentions that his toad moistened its 



