104 HINT TO ORNITHOLOGISTS. — ALYSSUM CALYCINUM. 



His address is, 



Monsieur JAQUES MORELL, 



Chez Messieurs Cotterell, Iggulden. ^ Co.y 

 Banquiers, 



A Naples. 

 TV. C. Trevelyan. — Edinburgh, 6th December ^ 1840. 



Hint to Ornithologists. — Having been lately at a meeting 

 of scientific friends, where the oft-repeated experiment of 

 puncturing the small end of an egg and placing it in an ex- 

 hausted receiver, was performed, to show the existence of 

 the air globule at the other end, and to illustrate its elasticity, 

 it suggested to me a neat mode of preparing eggs for collec- 

 tions, without the necessity of making a hole at both ends, 

 for the purpose of blowing them in the ordinary manner. — 

 The amount of air originally in the egg is not sufficient, — 

 hov^'ever well the receiver be exhausted, — to expel the whole 

 of the contents ; but if it be exhausted until a portion of the 

 albumen fall from the e^g, on the re- admission of air, a fresh 

 portion will be drawn in. On again removing atmospheric 

 pressure, a much larger quantity of the contents will escape, 

 nd, by a third or fourth repetition, the whole of the contents 

 of the e%^ will be evacuated. By reversing the experiment, 

 a little water may be drawn in to wash the inside of the shell, 

 and this may be again removed by the former process. By 

 these means eggs may be prepared for museums without any 

 further disfigurement than a needle puncture at one end, and 

 that so small as to be scarcely perceptible. — T. Bell Salter. — 

 Rijde, Isle of Wight. — Janmary 21s^, 1840. 



Alyssum calycinum near London. — Whilst engaged in look- 

 ing through the parcels of British plants received this year, 

 for the annual distribution of the Botanical Society of the Lon- 

 don, I was not a little surprised to find in the parcel received 

 from Mr. Isaac Brown, of Hitchin, Herts, nearly one hundred 

 specimens of this rare British plant, found by him in May, 

 1839, near Hitchin Common, Herts. J. am thus anxious to 

 make known this circumstance to metropolitan botanists, as 

 I believe it has never been observed within so short a distance 

 of London before, and must be looked upon as one of our 

 rarest British plants. — Daniel Cooper, Surgeon, Curator 

 B. S. L., S^c — 16, Great James Street, Bedford Row. — Janu- 

 ary Srd, 1840. 



