December 26, 1895] 



NATURE 



71 



which the young birds are reared ; in the case of the 

 shrike the diet is of a mixed nature, but is fairly uniform 

 in the case of the wren. To secure a foundation for this 

 theory it is assumed that cuckoos, when about to deposit 

 their eggs, intuitively select the nests of the species by 

 which they themselves were reared. Thus it has come 

 about that each particular species of host rears the young 

 of a particular race of cuckoo, the eggs of which, like 

 those of the host, exhibit great variability when the 

 food during the nesting period is mixed, and great 

 uniformity when the food is uniform. 



These papers are based upon a great number of 

 observations, which are exhaustively analysed and 

 tabulated for the benefit of those who may be fond of 

 statistics. 



THE YORKSHIRE GYPSEY-SPRINGS. 

 nPEN miles to westward of Bridlington Quay, in York- 

 ■■■ shire, is the much-neglected village of Wold Newton, 

 situated, as the name indicates, among the Wolds. It 

 is noted as being the place where the great Yorkshire 

 aerolite — exhibited in the British Museum — fell on 

 December 13, 1795, but more chiefly as being the birth- 

 place of several phenomenal springs known as gypsies 

 (the initial letter "g" pronounced hard). The gypsies 

 of Yorkshire resemble the nailboumes of Kent. 



They are variable and intermittent springs of very 

 clear and cold water, and appear on the surface of the 

 chalk valleys. So freely do the calcareous wolds absorb 

 rain, that they will allow it to pass underground as far 

 as the blue gault on which the chalk rests. Conse- 

 quently, there is scarcely a permanent surface-stream in 

 any of the numerous hollows that lacerate the chalk- 

 hills. The gypsies simply make their appearance in 

 winter, or early spring, or at other periods after heavy 

 rains, when the chalk is saturated. They will sometimes 

 flow for two or three months, then suddenly cease, leaving 

 scarcely a mark upon their birthplaces. They have been 

 known to have been quite inactive for three consecutive 

 years. The emission is often so copious as to constitute 

 a very considerable stream, filling a drain twelve feet wide 

 and three feet deep. This is called the gypsey-race, and 

 it conveys the flushed tide through the villages of Burton 

 Fleming, Ripdstone, Boynton, and finally disembogues it 

 through Bridlington harbour into the sea. 



The principal gypsey-head is in a field on the left side 

 of the road between Wold Newton and Foxholes. Another 

 ^ypsey rises to the light at Kilham, seven miles away. 

 It happened fortunate that a native of Wold Newton and 

 J caught the springs all open last Eastertide. We trod 

 over a deal of spongy grass-land to pursue inquiries at the 

 gypsey-head, and were rewarded by finding water issuing 

 through the grass where the ground was not broken, 

 and elsewhere rushing with considerable force over the 

 surface to the height of our boot-tops. Every one of 

 these little eruptions contributes to the race, and by it 

 gets eventually to the sea. 



At the western extremity of the great west to east 

 •valley of the Wolds — through which ran the old Brid- 

 lington and Malton high-road — there is a spring in a 

 bank about a furlong or two east of Wharram-le-Street. 

 This is the fountain-head of the Wold Beck— once known 

 locally as " Lord Carlisle's River " — which travels for some 

 aiine miles past the doors of Duggleby, Kirby Grinda- 

 lythe, West and East Lutton, Helperthorpc, and Weaver- 

 thorpe (a street of valley villages). This beck gradually 

 sinks, and finally disappears below the surface before 

 it reaches Butterwick, its sub-surface course being 

 ■lengthened or shortened as wetness or drought prevails. 

 :Some say this beck next reappears at Rudstone ; but, 

 in any case, it no doubt feeds the gypsey-head near 

 Wold Newton when the surrounding chalk is all well 

 saturated with rain. 



NO. 1365, VOL. 53] 



The race has been known dry for three consecutive • 

 years, while once or twice it has carried two or three 

 feet of water in mid-August. On Christmas Day, about 

 twenty years ago, it caused the village of Burton Fleming 

 to be flooded, and a farmer I spoke to there said he 

 went about wet-shod for a couple of months owing to this 

 inundation. The gypsies originally shaped a channel for 

 themselves. An attem.pt to divert this at Burton Fleming 

 proved a failure, so a broad and deep drain of the 

 dimensions already given was cut right away to the sea, 

 and called the gypsey-race. When in flood, it looks like 

 a pellucid trout-stream — twelve-pound trout have been 

 killed on its banks ; but there are no fish in it now, 

 and the bed is for miles covered with long emeraldine 

 grass, rippling like tangles of naiads' hair along the swift 

 current. The grass hides the chalk and every pebble ; 

 there is no babbling sound ; all Yorkshire besides has 

 no stream purer. 



Only a century or two ago there were still surviving, 

 from the days of monasteries, many silly superstitions and 

 traditions then attached to the mysterious conduct of the 

 gypsies. In an old tour, said to be written by Defoe, 

 we read that " whensoever those gypsies — or, as some 

 call them, vipsies — break out, there will certainly ensue 

 famine or plague." In fact, as the overflowing of the 

 Nile was to the ancients long an enigma, so was the 

 rising of the gypsies, and may be yet so, even to some of 

 the learned. Harwood Brierley. 



NOTES. 

 Prof. Sylvester has been elected an Associate of the 

 Brussels Academy of Sciences. 



Sir William H. Flower has been elected a Foreign 

 Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, in the place 

 of the late Prof. Huxley. 



Prof. Ray Lankester has been elected a Corresponding 

 Member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences. 



Prof. G. F, Fitzgerald, F.R.S., will deliver the Helmholtz 

 Memorial Lecture at an extra meeting of the Chemical Society, 

 to be held on January 23, 1896. 



The Valz prize of the Paris Academy of Sciences has been 

 awarded to Mr. W. F. Denning for his observations of shooting 

 stars, discoveries of comets, and other astronomical work. 



The Albert Levy prize, of the value of ;^2000 sterling, has, 

 says the British Medical Journal, been awarded by the Academy 

 of Medicine to Drs. Behring, of Berlin, and Roux, Sub-Director 

 of the Pasteur Institute in Paris, for their discovery of the means 

 of curing diphtheria. 



One of the special features of the exhibition to be held at 

 Berlin next year is to be an interesting and instructive Depart- 

 ment of Horticulture. This portion of the exhibition is being 

 carried out under the direction of Herr L. Spath, an acknow- 

 ledged authority on horticulture. 



A correspondent writes that on Decemlier 12, at about 

 6.10 p.m., he was walking towards Brownhills Station near 

 Walsall, when he heard a loud hissing sound, and, on looking 

 round, saw a meteor falling, of a blue colour, and dropping 

 sparks in its course. It was travelling S. 20° W. and apparently 

 at an angle of about 20° with the horizon. 



A DESCRII'TION of another meteor has come to us through the 

 Meteorological Office. WriUng from Oakford, Bampton, North 

 Devon, Lieut. Wolfe Murray says : — " Last night [December 17], 

 at about 6.30 p.m., I observed a very brilliant meteor. The 



