270 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



appendages, and on the top two pencils of hair, each 

 pencil being supported on a short stalk. 



I put my specimens into a small glass vessel. 

 After some hours I found several tubes of cobweb- 

 like texture, open at both ends, and slightly tapering, 

 attached to the sides of it, and in each tube a larva, 

 which, holding on by the anal prolegs, gave to its 

 body a vertical serpentine motion, which made a 

 current of water to flow through the tube. About 

 once a minute it would contract itself, and then, 

 pressing its head against the sides of the tube, collect 

 with its conspicuous mandibles and devour such of 

 those solid particles which had been drawn in by the 

 current and were entangled in the tube, as suited its 

 taste, and occasionally it would turn about and collect 

 at the narrow end, but it always brought its head 

 back to its old position at the larger end before it 

 commenced pumping again. 



This larva does not come to the surface of the 

 water to breathe, neither does the pupa, which also 

 lives in a tube, and makes the water flow through it 

 by the undulations of its body, just as the larva did, in 

 order, I presume, to bring the air contained in the 

 water into contact with the hairy fringes which border 

 the segments of its abdomen ; certainly not to obtain 

 food, for it does not eat. It has no hairs on the 

 thorax like those represented in the figures of Chiro- 

 nonius fliimosus. 



I was amused to see that each of my pupae kept its 

 old head under its body, where it rocked to and fro 

 with each wave of its abdomen ; there it was, with 

 its dark jaws, its little eyes, and neat brown collar, 

 and with the same comical, Japanese kind of expres- 

 sion that it had when it was in its old place. When 

 the pupae were about three days old they left their 

 tubes, and after swimming, or rather throwing them- 

 selves about with the most violent contortions for 

 three hours or so, and now frequently coming to the 

 surface, they remained there for a little while, and 

 then the transformation took place. 



Although I watched my captives pretty closely, 

 many of them changed their state unobserved. Once, 

 when I went away for two minutes only, I found 

 on my return the gnat creeping up the side of the 

 vessel. At last I was fortunate enough to see one 

 come out. It did not free itself in a careful, delibe- 

 rate manner, like the common gnat, which, sailing 

 about in its pupa skin, gently extracts its anterior 

 legs, and, after carefully placing these on the water, 

 proceeds to liberate the next pair, and so on ; but it 

 came forth as though it were being steadily squeezed 

 out, and then immediately flew away, the whole 

 operation occupying just fifteen seconds ! 



I had previously placed a pupa on the stage of my 

 microscope in order to examine it ; but before I had 

 time to do so, the skin parted, the head appeared, and 

 in about eighteen seconds the whole imago was out. 

 My specimens lived a month as larvae, and from 

 three to four days as pupa;. I am sorry that I have 



been unable to obtain the name of this insect. I 

 think it is allied, if it does not belong, to the genus 

 Chironomus. The imago is 1^ line long. The two 

 anterior legs are distant from the others, and the rost. 

 rum is short. 



The female is yellow, and has short antennae, of 

 few joints, the terminal one being the largest ; the 

 male is darker, with the abdomen greenish-brown ; 

 the tibiae and tarsi dusky ; the antennae plumose, of 

 many moniliform joints, with the terminal one cylin- 

 drical, and very long. — Edzvard Cox, Brixton. 



A TOUR IN SEARCH OF FOSSILS. 



THE experiences of a collector during a run from 

 Edinburgh to Bristol, and a stay of twelve 

 days at the latter place, may, perhaps, be interesting 

 to the readers of Science-Gossip. 



The first halting-place was Settle, in Yorkshire, 

 classic ground to the brachiopodist, mainly through 

 the labours of Mr. John Burrow. Mr. Burrow was 

 the son of a doctor of independent means, and spent 

 his life in working out the palaeontology of his dis- 

 trict. He was known to all of the inhabitants of the 

 town to whom I spoke, and an intelligent shoemaker, 

 who occasionally accompanied him on his rounds, 

 gave me what information he could, as to his habits 

 and excursions. He described him as "rather dull- 

 looking " as a lad, and as one from whose after-life 

 no great things were to be expected. From what I 

 had known of his work I was curious to find out as 

 much as I could about him, wondering, as so much 

 has recently been said of men in a humble grade of life 

 who have worked in pretty much the same groove, 

 what could be said of a man who was above them in 

 the social scale ; but I had not time to pursue such 

 inquiries very far ; the sum of what I learnt was that 

 he was a man who spent nearly the whole of his time 

 on the moors, that he worked hard, and, uniting 

 quickness of eye and intelligence with zeal, was able 

 to accomplish what he did. Mr. Davidson's mono- 

 graph of the British Carboniferous Brachiopoda bears 

 frequent testimony to his merits. His collection went 

 to the Woodwardian Museum, at Cambridge, fetch- 

 ing a sum which, as he himself said, paid him scarcely 

 at the rate of a halfpenny per hour for the time 

 during which he had been making it. He died 

 comparatively young. 



A collector's first experience of Settle would pro- 

 bably be disappointing. It requires, above all things, 

 time to know what a locality can produce, and a very 

 considerable amount of patience and muscular activity 

 to successfully work a locality that is known. Al- 

 most in accordance with my expectation, I found 

 Settle exceedingly barren during the single day I was 

 able to spend there. A few common Brachiopods 

 only rewarded my labour, but these, with the beauti- 

 ful mineralisation characteristic of the limestone of 

 the district, were thought worthy of preservation. A 



