22: 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



regarding the moon as moving a tide of molten 

 matter and welling it up in volcanoes ; where he may 

 eliminate the variables of perigee, nodes and orbit, 

 giving periods of nine, nineteen and a million years. 

 The meteorologist since the days of Galileo, or shall 

 I say of Schwabe of Dessau ? has discovered the sun- 

 spot cycles ruling the atmospheric conditions in 

 periods of about eleven years. And if it be true, 

 allowing the disturbing cause of craters choking up, 

 that earthquakes and eruptions as a rule visit our 

 hemisphere in the spring and autumn, and that they 

 are likewise felt about the same time in the same 

 isotherms or latitudes ; there seems no reason this 

 sun and weather theory should not in its development 

 run neck and neck with the lunar ; representing as it 

 does the variable element in the cosmical theory, and 

 explaining the origin of the earth waves and fissures 

 in the fluctuations of solar heat. 



Still, whatever be the fond bias to individual 

 theoretics, it will, I think, eventually appear that the 

 existing discrepancies may all disappear by a due 

 subordination. Thus I might suggest it has been lately 

 argued by certain correspondents to the "English 

 Mechanic," and with much semblance of truth, that 

 eruptions and earthquakes are explosions following 

 on the adventitious percolation of water down to the 

 heated nucleus of the earth ; a circumstance very 

 naturally following on the Assuring of the earth's 

 crust during expansion or contraction. Then the 

 eventual resolution of the philosophy, as far as it 

 affects mankind, will doubtless be found in the 

 Railway and Guide Book system of tables and a 

 plan. Paper and instruments to register and com- 

 pare earthquakes and irruptions, to determine their 

 periodicity and register their paroxysms ; to mark 

 the direction of earth waves, from east to west as 

 seems the rule, or otherwise ; to mark the direction 

 of earth rents, and note accompanying meteorolo- 

 gical phenomena. Plans to signalise the dangerous 

 districts which have varied little in all time j the 

 crystalline granite, and darker trachyte, being poured 

 out after the interval of vast ages around the same 

 mountain tracts ; earthquakes shaking down the 

 same cities century after century, like card houses 

 man has as recklessly rebuilt. One good has already 

 accrued to this practical method in the establishment 

 of lines, centres and sympathetic centres of disturb- 

 ances (Page's Text-Book, ed. 1872, p. 125) ; and 

 in the determination of lines of great cracks in 

 the crust : one of these running up the western 

 shores of America, and coming down the east of 

 Asia, and another starting from Iceland, and waving 

 down the west and south of Europe to meet it in the 

 China Sea (Sir John Herschel, Physical Geography), 

 These lines trend their curves to the passage of 

 the sun from east to west, and that which passes 

 through the Old World seems to have shown a 

 disposition to move northwards in historical time, 

 as we first hear of it in Southern Palestine. 



Lastly, it does seem strange, and passing strange> 

 that, while the press is establishing the periodicity of 

 earthquakes, river inundations and landslips, so 

 little heed is taken by the victims of these calamities - 

 who have their houses on the sand. Cannot Scieute 

 who here sits in honour regulate the structures and 

 induce a gradual emigration from the tracts of ill 

 omen, giving them up for a season to the shepherd 

 and the ploughman ? 



A. H. SWINTON. 



FOOD FOR PARROTS. 



IT is a great pity that persons whose only know- 

 ledge of a subject is evolved from their own 

 consciousness should always be so anxious with 

 advice, which is certain to be useless and is very 

 often injurious. 



The treatment of parrots recommended by 

 J. R. C. S. in the September number of Science- 

 Gossip is a casein point, to which I hasten to supply 

 the antidote ; premising that I am not speaking on 

 my own responsibility only, but in accordance with 

 the recommendations of our chief authorities on the 

 subject ; among whom I may mention the Rev. J. G. 

 Wood, Mr. A. Wiener and Mr. C. W. Gedney. 

 J. R. C. S. says "sopped bread is usually their staple 

 food — water they do not require." (!) And then he 

 goes on to say that they "more frequently die from 

 asthma than from any other cause ; though they 

 will live many years with this disease." 



Poor things ! no wonder, on such starvation diet, 

 which is not improved by the recommendation to 

 give raw meat, even with the qualification "to give 

 this too frequently is injurious." 



When one comes to consider what is the food of 

 the parrot in its native country, it will be readily seen 

 that no bird fed as recommended by J. R.^C. S. can 

 continue in health. 



In their wild state the grey parrots live on seeds 

 and fruit — maize and the seeds, or fruit, of the 

 coucourite palm chiefly ; and if it is desired to keep 

 a favourite parrot in health, the above diet must be 

 imitated as closely as possible, viz., maize (boiled 

 and dr)) hemp seed, canary seed, dry biscuits, nuts, 

 figs, and ripe fruit, a lump of sugar now and then, 

 and a piece of boiled potato or carrot. To say that 

 parrots do not drink is an absurdity, and to deprive 

 them of water the height of cruelty : why, parrots are 

 nearly always captured by the professional bird- 

 catchers at their drinking places, to which it is their 

 custom to resort night and morning. It may be 

 that parrots unnaturally fed on " sop " dO' not 

 swallow small stones or gravel, but I can answer for 

 it that such as are more naturally treated do. There is 

 no doubt that wild parrots often nibble a fat grub 

 when they are boring in a decayed tree to make a 



