200 



HARD WICKE S SCIENCE- G OS SI P. 



the beds.* Every exceptionally high tide leaves its 

 mark for a few days in a low cliff of sand, where 

 before it was sloping shore. The wind soon obliter- 

 ates this line of cliff, and brings things back to their 

 normal condition. 



Rippk-marks. — In walking on a sandy shore one 

 is struck by the difference it presents in its appear- 

 ance at different localities, and at different times. 

 At one place are to be seen beautiful ripple-marks 

 perfect in their ribbed regularity ; at another, the 

 sand is a perfect plane without a marking on it. On 

 one occasion — I have never seen it before nor since 

 in such perfection — a beautiful expanse of shore was 

 covered over with delicate tracings in the most intri- 

 cate convolutions interlacing in all directions. A close 

 examination showed that these markings were raised 

 from the surface of the sand plain, but so slightly as 

 to be hardly detectable. It appeared as if imprinted 

 from the edge of the foam as it floated over the shore. 

 On another occasion I noticed extremely fine striations 

 running in the direction of the dip of the shore, 

 appearing for all the world like glacial striae. Last 

 winter, while skating over a flash of water on the 

 Links, I was much interested in observing through 

 the transparent ice, all over the bottom, most perfect 

 ripple-marks, in some places brought out more 

 clearly by the hollows being partially filled with a 

 dark deposit. It was as if the ripple-marks had been 

 carefully preserved for exhibition in a museum by 

 placing a pane of glass over them. From crest to 

 crest, I should judge the ripples to measure about 

 I J inches, and these had been formed at a foot or 

 more below the surface of the water. They showed 

 the direction of the wind, which had been blowing 

 freshly from the north-west a few days before the 

 frost came on. It was doubly interesting, as proving 

 that the impression of the minute waves is propagated 

 so far below the surface. 



I have now finished my observations, which have 

 necessarily been brief, but I trust I have shown to my 

 readers, that it is not requisite to go far from home to 

 study nature. To the willing student she is always 

 close at the door, and to those who cultivate the art 

 of seeing an apparent trifle abounds with interest. 

 What can appear more unfruitful in suggestions than 

 sand ? Yet among the sandhills, as I hope I have 

 shown, some very good geological lessons may be 

 learned. 



sun- 



Sun-Burning. — Is the appearance called 

 burnt " which we acquire after exposure to the sun's 

 light and heat, due to the action of the former or the 

 latter, and if the latter, is it due to the presence of 

 "osmazone," the substance which gives cooked 

 meat its brown colour, or is it due to a chemical 

 change in the juices of the skin ? — Roland Ellis. 



* See "Eolian Sandstone," "Geological Magazine," May, 

 1881. 



A VISIT TO THE NEW FOREST. 



AS many of your entomological readers are at the 

 present season at the jDoint of deciding on 

 some locality wherein to pursue their favourite pas- 

 time, a few notes of a visit (from which I have just 

 returned) to the New Forest might be acceptable. 



Without any exaggeration, it may be called the 

 very best hunting ground in England, and should 

 these notes succeed in drawing to it a few more 

 students of Nature, they will not have been penned 

 in vain. From what I observed, I feel convinced 

 there is ample scope for discovery, and the advent 

 of strangers might stimulate others on the spot 

 to emulate them, a thing much needed, for I hear 

 there is danger of losing access to some of the 

 favourite haunts of insects. 1 mean the enclosures — 



Fig. 112. — DiphiJie7-a Orion. 



Fig. wi.^Diphthera Orion. 



Fig. 114.— Tlie Brindle White-spot ('7(?/,4wjzrt: extersaria). 



for it is whispered in high quarters that the visits of 

 flycatchers are not looked on favourably by the 

 ofiicial eye. At the present moment no steps in the 

 direction of further encroachment on public rights 

 are being taken, so nothing is to be feared by in- 

 tending visitors. 



In 1875, when a select committee of the House of 

 Commons heard evidence with respect to the pre- 

 servation or disafforestation of the forest, the artists 

 of Great Britain, represented by the then President of 

 the Royal Academy and others, entreated the Plouse 

 to do nothing which should in the least degree 

 destroy the character of a domain, ' ' absolutely unique 

 in its extent and variety, and embracing nearly every 

 constituent of pictorial beauty, presenting unexampled 

 opportunities for the study of Nature in perhaps her 



