Dec, 5, 1884.] 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



469 



THE FACE OF THE SKY. 



Fkom December 5th to December 19™. 

 By F.R.A.S. 



THE Sun, though low down in the sky, may still bo examined 

 for spots, &c. Map XII. of "The Stars in their Seasons" 

 ahows the aspect of the night sky. Mercury is an evening star, 

 but is, to all intents and purposes, invisible. Venus glitters still 

 in the morning sky before sunrise, but is losing interest as 

 a telescopic object. Mars is invisible. Jupiter is improving in 

 position for the observer. He rises soon after lOh. 30m. to-night, 

 and before 9h. 40m. p.m. by the 19th. By midnight now he is at 

 a sufficient height for the detail of his belts to be well seen. On 

 the night of the 10th (when, though he is very close to the 

 horizon) Satellite III. will begin its transit at lOh. 28m. Later, 

 Satellite I. will be eclipsed at 12h. 24m. 56s., and Satellite II. 

 will begin its transit at 12h. 34ra. Its shadow will pass oft at 

 Ih. 2m. a.m. on the 11th. On the night of the 11th Satellite I. 

 will begin its transit at lOh. 47m. ; its shadow will leave Jupiter's 

 disc at llh. 55m., and the satellite itself follow it at Ih. 7m. a.m. 

 on the 12th. On the 17th, the shadow of Satellite II. will enter 

 on to Jupiter's face at 12h. 39m., and that of Satellite III. pass off 

 at Ih. 12m. the next morning. On the 18th, the shadow of 

 Satellite I. will begin to cross the disc at llh. 28m. p.m., followed 

 by the Satellite casting it at 12h. 3Sm. The egress of both will 

 take place early on the following morning. Lastly, on the 19th, 

 Satellite I. will reappear from occultation 12 minutes, and 

 Satellite II. 29 minutes, after midnight. Saturn is visible all 

 night long, and is a splendid object in almost any tele- 

 scope. He continues to travel slowly away from J Tauri 

 in a westerly direction ("The Stars in their Seasons," Map I.). 

 Uranus is invisible, and Neptune is still in the blank region 

 in the eastern confines of Taurus. The Moon enters her last 

 quarter at llh. 30'5m. a.m., on the 9th, and is new at 

 Ih. 24"5m. p.m. on the 17th. Hence comparatively little will be 

 seen of her during the next fortnight. Only two occultations occur 

 during it. The first is of B.A.C. 3122, a Hi mag. star, which will 

 disappear at the bright limb of the Moon at llh. 38ni. p.m. on 

 Dee. 6, at an angle from her vertex of 95", reappearing at her dark 

 limb at 12h. 14m. p.m., at a vertical angle of 164° The next 

 night, the 7th, tt Leonis will have been occulted before moonrise. 

 It will reappear from behind her dark limb at lOh. 16m. p.m., at 

 an angle of 174° from her vertex. The Moon is in Cancer when 

 our notes begiu, but quits it at 6 a.m. on the 7th for Leo, through 

 which she travels until 11 a.m. on the 8th, when she descends into 

 Sextans, onl}', however, to re-emerge in Leo at 10 o'clock the same 

 night. She finally quits Leo for Virgo at 11 p.m. on the 9th. Her 

 passage through this great constellation occupies her until 8 a.m. 

 on the 13th, when she enters Libra. At 9 a.m. on the 15th she 

 crosses into the narrow northern strip of Scorpio, which at 8 o'clock 

 the same evening she leaves for Ophiuchus. At 5 p.m. on the 17th 

 she passes the boundary into Sagittarius, and is still in that con- 

 stellation when these notes terminate. 



CROWS versus WOODCHUCK. 



AWOODCHUCK (or ground hog) had its burrow in an elevated 

 piece of ground at the edge of a field of buckwheat stubble 

 along the public road between Monticello and Thompsonville, in 

 Sullivan County. It had been seen occasionally playing in the 

 Btubble. A few days ago a flock of crows took up their quarters 

 in a piece of woods near the field, and have since passed their time 

 feeding on the buckwheat, which they seem to find in abundance 

 in the stubble. The other day, a resident of Monticello was driving 

 along the road when he heard a great tumult among the crows. The 

 entire flock was centred about a certain spot in the field, and 

 individual members were darting up and down and to and fro, 

 and always returning savagely to the same spot. The noise 

 of the combined cawing of the fifty throats was deafening, 

 and of that peculiar character which always denotes that 

 the crow has more serious business on hand that the ordinary 

 duties of its every-day life. The man stopped his horse and 

 looked to see what the cause of the tumult was, and discovered 

 that the woodchuck had wandered unsuspectingly into the stubble, 

 and that the crows, taking oilence at his presence on their feeding- 

 ground, had attacked him in force. The woodchuck was trying to 

 make his way to his burrow, but, assailed on every side by the 

 sharp beaks and strong claws of the crows, he found his progress 

 exceedingly slow and painful. Now and then, goaded by some 

 especially savage dig from a crow, he would make a show of 

 fighting back, but this only increased the noise and the fierceness of 

 his assailants. Fortunately for the woodchuck, he had been surprised 



by the jealous crows before he had gone far from his hole. If he 

 had been set upon in the middle of the field he would have been 

 killed, and doubtless eaten, before he got back to his home. Aa it 

 was, he gradually edged along toward the burrow. The air was filled 

 with flying fur and feathers. The woodchuck would have had some 

 show with a dog or two, but the sort of warfare carried on by the 

 crows was something that rendered his best tactics utterly worth- 

 less. After a struggle of ten minutes the poor animal succeeded in 

 dragging himself to the mouth of his hole, and it needed all of his 

 remaining strength to pull himself safely inside of it. The crows 

 circled around and around the spot where the woodchuck had dis- 

 appeared, filling the air with the most hideous cries, but whether 

 of disappointment or triumph the spectator was unable to say. 



Finally, they all alighted on the ground, a few feet away from 

 the burrow, and apparently held a council of war. They cawed 

 and strutted about, first one and then another flying up to the 

 woodchnck's hole, and then back to the council. These movements 

 lasted for five minntes, and resulted in two old crows posting them- 

 selves on the fence directly opposite the woodchnck's hole, and only 

 a few feet away from it. The remainder of the flock returned to 

 their work in the field, and not a sound was heard from any of 

 them. The spectator was so interested in the proceedings that he 

 waited for half-an-hour to see if anything new developed. The two 

 crows on the fence, where they had been placed, evidently to give 

 notice if the woodchuck appeared again, remained at their posts as 

 dumb as oysters. No change in the situation taking place, the 

 spectator was about to drive on, when he heard a caw 

 from one of the sentinel crows. The man, supposing that 

 the woodchuck had been unwise enough again to venture out, 

 expected to see the entire flock once more hurry to the 

 scene. Such was not the case. In response to the cry two crows 

 left the flock and flew to the fence, took the places of the two 

 sentinels, and the latter returned to the field. The spectator, 

 unwilling to remain any longer for fear that he might see something 

 done that would not be believed when he told it, drove on. He 

 returned past the field an hour and a half later. There were still 

 two silent sentinel crows on the fence. Subsequently he returned 

 with another man to see what the result of the difficulty between 

 the crows and the woodchuck had been. There were no sentinels on 

 the fence. The men flushed the crows in the field, and the flock 

 took to the woods. A visit was made to the woodchuck's hole. It 

 had been " dug out." The man who had first seen the pro- 

 ceedings declared his belief that the crows had grown weary of 

 waiting for the woodchuck to come out, and had set to and un- 

 earthed him. There were about the spot, however, too many evi- 

 dences of the small boy and a dog for this theory to hold, and it was 

 abandoned. — New York Times. 



Royal Microscopical Society. — At the last meeting of the above 

 society, a new "Lantern" Microscope, the invention of Mr. Lewis 

 Wright, worked out and manufactured by Messrs. Newton & Co., 

 of 3, Fleet-street, was exhibited by the oxyhydrogen light to an 

 unusually large number of Fellows. The results obtained were, in 

 the opinion of Dr. Dallinger, F.E.S. (president). Dr. Carpenter, 

 Prof. Stewart, Mr. Crisp (hon. sec), and others, greatly in advance 

 of anything that has previously been obtained, far exceeding in 

 definition the " Giant Electric Microscope " exhibited last year. 

 Among other objects were exhibited the following: — Human thumb 

 (showing perspiratory glands), circulation of blood in living frog, 

 blowfly's tongue (showing spiral formation), &c., besides several 

 anatomical and other slides (echinus spines, lic.) mounted by Dr. 

 Carpenter and others, which were shown on the 14-ft. screen, in a 

 most brilliant and clearly defined manner. 



Tee Eector and Fellows of Exeter College have, says the 

 Afhenceum, just obtained for their hall a fine portrait of the late 

 Sir Charles Lyell, the immortal author of the " Principles of 

 Geology." Lyell was an undergraduate of Exeter College from 

 1815 to 1819, when he took a second class in classics and graduated 

 B.A. He received the honorary degree of D.C.L. in 1855. The 

 present portrait is a copy in oils of that executed by Lowes 

 Dickinson two years before Sir Charles Lyell's death in 1875, now 

 in the possession of Mrs. Henry Lyell. Exeter may justly feel 

 proud of Sir Charles Lyell's connection with the college, and has 

 done well in giving a place of honour to the man who made Darwin 

 possible, and was at one time anathematised by society for his de- 

 molition of the Mosaic cosmogony. It is a pleasure to reflect on 

 the fact that the present Fellows of Exeter have taken pains to 

 place a really fine painting of Lyell on their walls ; for, as far as 

 we remember, the portraits hitherto serving to decorate the public 

 rooms of that seat of learning have been entirely devoted to the 

 glorification of second-rate ecclesiastical dignitaries, and are 

 eminently worthy of their originals. 



