HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



165 



poisonous, whereas that idea seems, by recent 

 research and experiment, found to be a long-standing 

 error, both vulgar and scientific. An article written by 

 John Harley, M.D., was published in the " Pharma- 

 ceutical Tournal," November 1S80, and copied, it 

 appears, "from the " St. Thomas's Hospital Reports," 

 vol. 10, in which he says, " Here we witness on the 

 one hand, the animus of an ancient prejudice, and a 

 deplorable ignorance of ^^'////Jrt' Cynapium. From my 

 study of the plant, I was led to the conclusion that it 

 was perfectly harmless. Shall we say that three 

 hundred years of horror, loathing and hate, cast upon 

 this now innocent plant, have at last purged it of its 

 ' " Dr. Harley then proceeds to give details of 



vice 



the extraction of the juice of the plant, "obtained 

 before flowering," from the plant "in green fruit," 

 and on the juices of the "immature and mature 

 plants," after which he continues, " Being thus pro- 

 vided with carefully prepared juices of the young 

 plant in its most succulent condition, and of the same 

 generation of plants in their fully matured condition, 

 I exhausted my supply upon four patients : one, a 

 little girl six years old, v/ho took them in quantities 

 ranging from two drachms to two ounces ; myself, 

 who took them in quantities ranging from two to 

 four fluid ounces ; and two other adults, who were 

 the subjects of spasmodic torticollis. These two took 

 one or other of the juices in doses ranging from one 

 to eight fluid ounces. Effects were carefully looked 

 for, but there were absolutely none in either case 

 after any one of the doses." " I say in conclusion 

 that the Aithusa Cynaphifn of Sussex, Kent, Surrey, 

 Essex, and Hertfordshire, is not only absolutely free 

 from the noxious properties attributed to it, but that 

 it is all pleasant, to sight, smell and taste, and, in 

 the absence of the more fragrant and succulent plant, 

 might well be used as a potherb or a salad." Dr. 

 Harley's article, in which he reviews the previous 

 scientific errors and quotes authorities who had mis- 

 represented this plant as poisonous, would occupy 

 some six or seven columns of the Science-Gossip, 

 and I have therefore only quoted a few of his 

 sentences and summing up on the whole question, 

 from which it appears fully established that the fool's 

 parsley is not a poisonous plant. — IF. Buddcn, 

 Ipswich, 



The Cuckoo. — Last autumn, a young cuckoo was 

 taken at Westbourne, and carefully cherished during 

 the past severe winter. It was allowed to fly about 

 in an open hall, and has became so tame that it will 

 perch on the finger and permit itself to be stroked. 

 It will also occasionally sit on a cat's back. It is 

 fond of boiled egg, and delights in the caterpillars of 

 the "woolly bear." Jenyns observes that the orbits 

 of the mature bird are orange-yellow; these are of a 

 pale citron. The irides, as he describes them, are at 

 present liver brown. Its cuckoo cry has not yet been 

 heard. Can any one tell me if this belongs to the 

 mature bird only?— /". H. Arnold. 



Head or Tail. — Gilbert White is right, accord- 

 ing to my observations, when he says that snakes 

 " crawl out of the mouth of their own sloughs and 

 quit the tail part last, just as eels are skinned by a 

 cook-maid." A "cook-maid" would find it hard 

 work to skin one if she began at the tail. My 

 English snakes always cast their sloughs by going 

 under the water-pan, and crawling out the other side, 

 leaving the slough under, turned wrong side out. 

 But foreign snakes may do different. Nature often 

 has two ways of performing the same end. But if Mr. 

 Heath or any one else were to get some English 

 snakes he would find that they cast their slough 



by beginning at the head, and not the tail, I 

 always find it easier when pulling my stocking off, 

 to begin at the mouth and not at the toe. — A, Field- 

 send. 



Slowworm Casting its Slough.— I possessed a 

 slowworm which cast its slough, and I noticed that 

 it came out of the head-end. I have the tail part of 

 the skin now preserved in methylated spirits, and 

 there is no aperture at the tail-end. — A. Dixon, Hailey- 

 biiry. 



Lepidopterous Names.— The following list of 

 names, copied from Morris's " British Butterflies " 

 will perhaps be of use to J. P : i. Boisduval ; 2. 

 Stephens ; 3. Schrank ; 4. Schrank ; 5. Schrank ; 

 6. Latreille ; 7. Latreille ; 8. Godart ; 9. Fabricius ; 

 10. Latreille; II. Stephens; 12. Jermyn. — C. F., 

 Eastbourne. 



The Spelling of Harebell. — Mr. Habben 

 writes to you about the purer spelling of the hare-bell, 

 which he thinks may be really hair-bell, as it has 

 certainly been sometimes spelt, but, without doubt, 

 erroneously, being founded only on the difticulty of 

 explaining hare-bell. Professor Skeat, in his " Etymo- 

 logical Dictionary," tells us that it does not appear 

 among the Anglo-Saxon names of plants, but it was 

 an old custom to name plants from animals, and he 

 gives instances of several which have been formed 

 from words joined to "hare," e.g. "hare's foot," 

 "hare's lettuce," " hare-thistle," &c. The word is 

 found in Shakespeare's Cymbeline, act iv. scene 2, 

 and I quote the passage from the famous first folio 

 edition of 1623, reprinted in reduced facsimile by 

 Chatto and Windus in 1876 : 



" With fayrest Flowers 

 Whil'st Sommer lasts, and I live heere, Fidele, 

 He sweeten thy sad graue ; thou shall not lacke 

 The Flower that's like thy Face, Pale-Primrose, nor 

 The azur'd Hare-bell, like thy Veines ; no, nor 

 The leafe of Eglantine, whom not to slander 

 Out sweetned not thy breath." 



It is unfortunate that in some books on botany a 

 species of hyacinthus most usually called, in common 

 speech, the blue-bell, is denominated hare-bell as 

 well as the Campamda rotundifolia, the true hare-bell, 

 and of course a very different kind of flower. — IV. T. 

 Lynn, B.A. 



Hair Bell or Hare Bell.— It may interest Mr, 

 Habben, B.A., to know that although Miss Pratt, 

 " Flowering Plants of Great Britain," says of Campa- 

 nula rotundifolia that "this plant, the harebell of 

 the poets " is by modern botanists restored to the old 

 orthography, Lindley and others call it harebell. 

 Dodonseus alludes to A. nutans (wild hyacinth) as 

 generally known by name of "harebel." Gerarde 

 calls the same plant "blew harebel," and in a fine 

 copy of Hudson's " Flora Anglica" isted., 1762, now 

 in my possession, the name harebells is given to the 

 wild hyacinth, and C. rotundifolia named "round- 

 leaved bell flower." Shakespeare, in a reference to 

 A. nutans, uses " azured harebell ;" while Tennyson 

 evidently refers to C. rotundifolia as " frail harebell." 

 — James Bowker, F.R.G.S.I. 



Braula C^CA. — I have been reading the article 

 in the May number on Braula caca (p. 108) and beg 

 to point out one or two discrepancies : the figures 

 first. In fig. 69 the tarsi are composed of five joints, 

 whereas in fig. 72 they vaiy from five to seven. In 

 the same figures, no indication of the rudimentary 

 wing is shown, and the pulvilli, which are so much 

 developed in figs. 69 and 72, are not shown at all in 



