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HARDWICKES SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



night I captured between 500 and 600, mostly 

 Nocture, and including nearly seventy species, many 

 of them of considerable rarity. The number of some 

 species which entered was enormous, and proved a 

 great nuisance. Since June, I have captured in this 

 way nearly 250 species of Lepidoptera, besides a 

 great number of other kinds of insects. I find that 

 most moths come late at night, after all the lights in 

 the neighbourhood have been extinguished, because 

 so many lights cause a distraction, and one light, 

 however brdliant, does not produce its full effect 

 until it becomes conspicuous by its loneliness. The 

 busiest time with the moths seemed to be just about 

 midnight. They usually enter the room in batches 

 of half a dozen or more, then perhaps there would 

 be a lull for a few seconds until another lot would 

 make its appearance. When they enter the room, 

 after flying about for a while, they usually settle on 

 the wall, where they can be easily captured. It is 

 most amusing to see a great hawk-moth fly against 

 the window, and with such a bang that one may 

 almost imagine oneself to have been shot. — IV. 

 Harcourt Bath, Sutton Cold field. 



Sugaring in 1886. — The recent season has been 

 on the whole a decided success for sugaring in the 

 Midlands. In July, in particular, the sugarings were 

 well patronised by the moths. The result of one 

 night's work in Sutton Park, I captured over thirty 

 specimens of T. batis, besides a host of other rarities. 

 The Heterocera have been rather abundant this 

 season ; but the Rhopalocera have not been so 

 numerous in proportion.- — IV. Harcourt Bath, Sutton 

 Coldfield. 



Cats and Rabbits.— I enclose a cutting from 

 Keen's "Bath Journal" of iSth inst., on the subject 

 of cats and rabbits crossing. — G. A. Newman. 



Captain J. Buchan Telfer, R.N., writes from Spiez, 

 Switzerland: — "Your correspondent at Melbourne 

 mentions, on the authority of the " Wimmera Star," 

 a curious freak of nature in the progeny of a tan cat 

 and a black rabbit. It may be of some interest to 

 naturalists and others if I state that, in the Hotel at 

 St. Martin, Lantosque, in which I passed the summer 

 of 1S83, there was a creature, in colour pure white, 

 having the head and forelegs of a cat, the hinder 

 parts being those of a rabbit. The ears were like- 

 wise those of a rabbit. Its movements, somewhat 

 laboured, were like a rabbit's, and when approached 

 it would emit a discordant shriek. It was a remark- 

 ably timid animal, its sole and constant playmate a 

 young terrier, the only person in the house from 

 whom it would not seek to escape being the cook. It 

 was born of a cat on the premises, but nothing was 

 known of the male parent. 



Scarcity of Partridges. — The following ap- 

 pears in a local Cumberland newspaper : — " The par- 

 tridge shooting season in this district has been the 

 most barren that has been experienced for many 

 years. In the commencement of September the 

 fields of grain were uncut, and now that the land 

 has been cleared, the birds are so wild as to be 

 almost unapproachable. Not a tithe of the number 

 that were shot last year in a corresponding time have 

 yet fallen to the. sportsman's gun" This is an 

 eminently lucky circumstance for the poor birds. 

 This year's harvest in the northern districts, it may 

 be observed, has been characterised by the excellence 

 of the oat, potato, mangold, turnip, and carrot crops. 

 Wheat has been a failure, while bailey has been fair 

 only. It would appear, therefore, that the safety 

 and " whole-skinness" of our wild birds co-exist 

 with the exuberance of the crop yielding the staple 



food for cattle, and with the penury of the chief 

 article of human diet. This is a very interesting 

 fact, challenging a more than cursory consideration. 

 The poor birds get off scot-free, while man's granaries- 

 are unreplenished. The sporting and dietary luxuries 

 of the higher classes are mulcted contemporaneously 

 with the solid substantial food-necessities of the 

 lower classes. This seems hardly fair on the part of 

 Nature, especially when it be considered that the 

 food stamina of cows, sheep, and pigs, etc., which 

 yield meat for the rich man's table, are at the same 

 time plenteously abundant. On the whole we see 

 that in this year the rich are well fed on solid diet 

 and deprived of luxury, while the poor are rendered 

 deficient in necessaries. Has any reader of Science- 

 Gossip ever before commented on this sort of pro- 

 vision of nature ? — P. Q. Keegan, LL.D. 



Air-bladders of Fish. — Your correspondent 

 "Mark Antony" has again misquoted Goldsmith. 

 This time it is about the air-bladders of fish, which 

 he introduces into his note on bees and poets, the 

 association between which it is hard to see. The 

 matter may be a trifling one, but " Science-Gossipers " 

 are zealous for accuracy, and zealous of the reputation 

 of the old masters of natural history. At p. 239, 

 M. A. says, "Goldsmith makes quite as great a 

 blunder when he tells us that the freshwater gudgeon 

 and eel have no air-bladder." What Goldsmith does 

 say will be found in his " History of Fishes," bk. i. 

 c. 1, and is as follows— " Many fish are furnished 

 with an air-bladder that continually crawl at the 

 bottom, such as the eel and flounder ; and many 

 more are entirely without any bladder that swim at 

 ease in every depth, such as the anchovy and fresh- 

 water gudgeon." It is very funny that the only fact 

 in the above, which the researches of modern society 

 show to be correct, is the one which M. A. alters 

 — -viz. about the eel having an air-bladder. Nobody 

 takes Goldsmith for an authority nowadays, still he 

 did a good work in his time, and was not behind the 

 naturalists of his period. It is to be hoped that the 

 other quotations indulged in by " M. A. " are a 

 little more "remarkably correct" than his dealings 

 with the author of the "History of the Earth and 

 Animated Nature."—^. IV. Lett, M.A. 



Showers of Shells. — I had supposed that in 

 these days of popular science the tales of " Showers 

 of Snails," " Showers of Frogs," etc., had been 

 consigned to the same oblivion as tales of witchcraft. 

 I was much astonished, therefore, in July last, to 

 find the "Western Morning News," a Plymouth 

 daily paper of great and deserved repute, in the 

 West of England, publish a circumstantial account 

 of a "shower of snails" in the county of Cornwall, 

 to find that account copied in nearly all the Devon 

 and Cornwall local journals, and to see the same 

 account in Science-Gossip for October. I thought 

 I should for once like to trace the origin of one of 

 these fabulous tales, and succeeded in getting the 

 full particulars, as well as a sample of the shells, 

 through the kindness of Mr. Thomas Cornish, solicitor, 

 of Penzance ; and, as I suspected, the shells turned out 

 to be Helix virgata, and Bitlimus acutus, species- 

 which have done duty before for similar phenomena. 

 These two species live in myriads at the roots of 

 grass and herbage, and at certain periods, after 

 showers of rain, appear on the leaves and stalks to the 

 astonishment of the rustics, who see these snails 

 appearing in multitudes during rain without apparently 

 coming from anywhere, and jump to the conclusion 

 that they must have fallen with the rain. But, in 

 truth, the snails are always there, and only require 

 the necessary atmospheric stimulus to make them. 



