Queries and Answers. 299 



Skulls of Brides. — Can you, or any of your correspondents, inform me 

 whether or not the skulls of brutes are in two tables, in the manner of those 

 of the human race? — C. May, 1828. 



The human Voice. — I have been always wont to regard the human voice, 

 ■with its inflections and the various other phenomena of speech, as one of 

 the most distinctive and wonderful things which belong to human nature ; 

 and I have always been proportionally curious to know what is most par- 

 ticularly wanting in the throats and lungs of the higher classes of animals, 

 especially those which approach nearest to ourselves, that hinders them 

 from imitating us, and that makes even the most docile of them unteach- 

 able in this way. Why beasts do not speak the language of man, is not the 

 question I would propose, but why (as is evident) they cannot. Whether 

 it is owing, to use a musical phrase, to their want of ear ; whether, to use 

 a philosophical one, it results from their want of understanding ; or whether, 

 as I am apt to think, it arises from the want of a proper conformation of 

 the organs most necessary in speaking ? Now, if any of your correspond- 

 ents could be induced to favour me with a little comparative anatomy or 

 reasoning, which would go to the elucidation of this point, I am sure it 

 could not fail of being interesting to many of your readers, but particularly 

 to your correspondent. — Id. 



Stariuortj as a Remedy for sickly Bees. — Sir, Grahame, in his British 

 Georgics, p. 126., describes a plant, under the name of " starwort," as a 

 remedy for sickly bees. Our " husbandmen" do not seem to be acquainted 

 with the herb, nor is my knowledge of botany extensive enough to enable 

 me to determine what it is. I shall, therefore, feel obliged to any cor- 

 respondent who can give me its botanical name ; and the obligation will be 

 much increased if he can also inform me that experience has confirmed its 

 healing virtues. That it is not the " starwort" of botanists, the appended 

 description will sufficiently show : — 



" In meadows grows a flower, by husbandmen 

 Called starwort; easily it may be known. 

 For, springing from a single root, it spreads 

 A foliage affluent, golden-hued itself, 

 While, from the leaves of darkest violet. 

 An under-tint of lighter purple shines : 

 Harsh to the taste, it wrings the shepherd's .mouth : 

 Its root in wine infused, affords at once 

 The hapless sufferers medicine and food." 



An Apiarian, Berwick j May 5\, 



The Gloivivorm. — Sir, In the review of Murray's Researches in Natural 

 History, in the last Number of your Magazine, I find the following passage 

 concerning the glowworm, Z>ampyris noctiluca (from nox^ night, lucus, a 

 light J and not from noctiluca, a candle, as in the review) : — " Their light, 

 which they have power to extinguish at pleasure, proceeds from brilliant 

 spots on the three last rings of the body, under the tail; the luminous mat- 

 ter is a yellow substance, contained in vesicles, and when these vesicles are 

 removed entire, they shine for some time afterwards, but if lacerated they 

 are extinguished." This passage brought to my recollection a circumstance 

 which is probably not worth relating, but which interested me ; it might 

 be from my ignorance of the subject. I was, with a large party, returning 

 at a late hour of the night, from Richmond theatre, to Ham, when we ob- 

 served a number of glowworms in the path : their unusual number engaged 

 our attention, and a young lady stooping to take up one in her hand, ob- 

 served that she had hurt it, and passed on. Two of us stayed to look at 

 the wounded worm, which had become exceedingly luminous ; we traced 

 its passage on the earth, by a train of light yet more vivid than its unbroken 

 lamp, and still extending in length. I do not, at this distance of time, re- 



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