Carrier Pigeon, Nummidites, Edible Muscle. 619 



are uniformly of one colour in their wild state, which is a v 

 greenish yellow, and not very beautiful. The connoisseurs call 

 those of the strongest colour, junks ; and the others, mealies. 

 It is the general practice to breed junk and mealy : the mealies 

 are reckoned the strongest birds. If any one wishes to breed 

 beautiful hybrids, they should have a junk female canary, and 

 as large a male goldfinch as they can get. As soon as the 

 young ones are hatched, take away the goldfinch, for he will 

 not feed them, but be continually pecking them. 



The Carrier-Pigeon. A Society of Pigeon Fanciers, at 

 Ghent, give an Annual Prize for the Best Carrier Pigeon. — 

 In 1833, this prize was decided on June 24th, when 24 birds 

 were sent off from Rouen, whither they had been conveyed 

 from Ghent. The distance in a direct line is about 1 50 miles. 

 They were started at Rouen at 55 minutes after 9 o'clock in 

 the morning. The first which arrived at Ghent had made 

 the transit in an hour and a half; 16 arrived in 2-§ hours, 

 three in the course of the day, and four were lost. (Bcirow's 

 Worcester Journal, J r uly, 18. 1833.) 



Molluscous Animals. — Nummidites. It will be as inter- 

 esting to the geologists as to the collectors of animals, to learn 

 that I have lately dredged up in these seas numerous speci- 

 mens of recent Nummulltes, entangled in sea-weeds. They 

 are thin, the whorls very numerous, and the shell not exceed- 

 ing three lines in diameter. I, at first, supposed they might 

 be allied to some genera of corallines; but, from their struc- 

 ture, it is more probable that the shell, as in Spirula [V. 612.], 

 is subinternal. This fact [? assumption], however, I have 

 yet to prove. They form an interesting object for the micro- 

 scope, and shall soon be figured for some British work. — 

 {The late Bev L. Guilding. St. Vincent, May 1. 1830.] 



A Fact in Proof that the Eatable Muscle {Mi/tilus edulis) 

 may be poisonous at the Time at which it produces its Spawn. 

 — It is well known that fish generally are more or less un- 

 wholesome at the spawning season ; the salmon, for in- 

 stance. Some, indeed, are extremely deleterious : a beau- 

 tiful and wise provision, intended by Providence to secure 

 the perpetuity of the species. Some eight summers ago, 

 while walking en solitaire along the sands of Exmouth, on 

 the coast of Devonshire, I picked up a substance resem- 

 bling crumb of bread sponge ; and, on minutely examining it 

 with a lens, discovered it to be the matrix of innumerable 

 minute muscles, evidently the spawn of the ikfytilus edulis. 

 I rubbed a portion of the embedding substance on the back of 

 my hand ; when it was followed by a virulent inflammatory 



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