240 



KNOWLEDGE. 



[October 1, 1897. 



Greenshanks and Baerkd Warbler in Norfolk. — 

 Finding myself now at au inconvenient distance from my 

 old haunt on the Yorks-hire coast, I have been trying a 

 Norfolk hunting-ground between August 23rd and Sep- 

 tember 3rd of this year. Amongst the Lunicnhe, the 

 great feature was the number of greenshanks to be met 

 with : usually seen in my previous experience by ones and 

 twos, it was nothing unusual to see them in parlies of 

 four and five individuals, and probably a score or fiveand- 

 twenty in all were a not unusual day's experience. Of 

 migrant strangers I saw but few, though these were in- 

 teresting. This scarcity was no doubt due to the persistent 

 sontb-west winds, which I have never found to be very 

 fruitful in Continental migrants. On May 27th I had the 

 pleasure of picking up the sixth British example of the 

 barred warbler, which dodged out of a small bush in a 

 high wind, and gave me a snap shot over a sandhill. Till 

 I picked it up I believed it to be a garden warbler, as 1 

 did the one I obtained in almost exactly similar circum- 

 stances in Yorkshire on August 28th, 1884. This year's 

 one is an adult female. — Henry H. Slater, Wansford. 



White Stoek at Horsham, Sussex. — On August I8th 

 last a fine male specimen of the white stork (('iconia alha), 

 an irregular visitor to Great Britain, was picked up dead 

 on New Barn Farm, Colgate, about four miles north-east 

 of Horsham. It was found to have been shot, but must 

 have escaped from the gunner only to die of its wounds. 

 It has been preserved by Mr. A. Eichardson, of Park 

 Street, Horsham, where it can now be inspected. — Chas. 

 J. Marten, Horsham. 



Allafross in CamhridgesMre. — Colonel E. A. Butler records 

 the capture of an albatross — which has been identified b_v Messrs. 

 Ho^Tard f'aunders, Oshert Salvin, and J. H. G-urney, as Diomedea 

 melnimphri/s — near Linton, in Cambridgeshire, on Jidy 9th, ]897. 

 (T/ie Field,\o\. XC, August 28th, 1897.) 



TJte Discoven/ of Sones of the Great Avh in Counixi Waterford 

 III S. J Ussher. — These bones are of at least two distinct examples 

 of AIca impennis, and were determined by Prof. Kewton and Dr 

 Gadow. They were discovered by Mr. Ussher in a iitehen mid len, 

 as far south as 52° north latitude. (Irish Natiiralist, Vol. YI., Xo. 8, 

 p 208.) 



The Autumn Sonr/ oj Birdu, hi) O. T'. Ajilin, M.B.O.U., is a con- 

 tinuation of a discussion between the author and C. A. Witchell on 

 the autumn songs of the robin, starlinff, thrush, blackbird, willow 

 wren, chiffchaif, blackcap, and other birds. (The Zoologist, 4th 

 Series, Vol. I., No. 0, pp. 410 and 411.) 



All contributions to the column, either in the iiny of notes 

 or photographs, should he forwarded to Harry F. Witheehv, 

 at 1, EUot Place, Blackheath, Kent. 



Sbtitmt jKoUs. 



It is reported that the Southern Mahratta Eailway offers 

 Iree passes to all observers of the total eclipse of the 

 «un on 22iul January, 1898. Sir Norman Lockyer and 

 Mr. Fowler will, we understand, be stationed near Eatna- 

 giri, on the Bombay coast, while the Astronomer Eoyal, 

 Prof. Turner, and l)r. Common will take up a position 

 where the shadow track crosses a point on the Great 

 Indian Peninsular Eailway. The length of the path across 

 India is about a thousand miles, and the width of the 

 shadow fifty miles, so that, considering the climatic con- 

 dition of India, favourable opportunities for utilizing the 

 precious two minutes may be expected. 



Sir George Grove draws attention to two passages in the 

 songs in Shakespeare's plays in which he appears to have 

 intended to imitate the eflect of the note of the thrush. 

 The passages which Sir George Grove imagines not to have 

 been much noticed in this regard are : — 1. Stanza 3 of 

 Autolycus's song in " A Winter's Tale " (Act IV., Scene 3) : 

 '•With heigh! with heigh 1 the thrush and the jay." 

 2. Amiens' song in " As Y'ou Like It " (Act II., Scene 5) ; 

 " Come hither ! come hither ! come hither ! " In the first 

 instance the repetition of " with heigh," and, in the second 

 instance, the thrice repeated " come hither, come hither, 

 come hither," each foot being sharply accented on the 

 second syllable, give the exact effect of the short phrases 

 which are so noticeable in the thrush's song, and which 

 Lord Tennyson has given so well (though more elaborately 

 than Shakespeare) in his poem " The Throstle " : "I know 

 it, I know it, I know it " — and several other lines. It is a 

 pleasure to find these two great poets agreeing — apparently 

 unintentionally — on such a small but worthy point in 

 nature. 



Prof. Schaeberle is credited with having noticed a 

 partial division in the inner bright ring of Saturn, which, 

 of course, can only be detected under the most favourable 

 seeing conditions. 



Prof. Goldstein, of Berlin, has succeeded in experimen- 

 tally reproducing, by means of cathode rays, certain very 

 distinct and characteristic cometic phenomena, such as 

 the radiation of light from the head of a comet and the 

 resultant development of a tail. He has also been able, 

 by these means, to account for certain peculiarities of this 

 class of phenomena which have been observed in recent 

 years. 



« ♦ « 



According to Dr, Spencer and Prof. Gilbert, the surface 

 of the earth near the Great Lakes of North America is 

 sinking at the rate of about one inch in ten years, a sub- 

 sidence which, in the course of a few centuries, will place 

 Chicago and Detroit under water ; within a thousand years 

 Lake Michigan will flow freely into the Mississippi, and 

 in three thousand years Niagara will be dry. 



Eeferring to the insect-digesting powers of pitcher- 

 plants, Mr. Btirbidge, Curator of the Botanical Gardens 

 at Trinity College, Dublin, suggests that nature had 

 prompted that means of obtaining nourishment in order 

 to compensate for the disadvantages attaching to a feeble 



root-system. 



— ►-«-< — 



Dr. Peate has completed the process of grinding and 

 polishing his gigantic disc of glass, over sixty-one inches 

 in diameter, on which he has been engaged more than two 

 years. By the aid of this mirror a hair can be seen at a 

 distance of a thousand feet, and the reflection of the moon 



at the focal point would be absolutely blinding. 



— ,-.-, — 



Sir William Flower, writing from Cromer to the Times 

 on 4th September, describes a waterspout, eight miles 

 from shore, consisting of a cloud with a narrow stem which 

 rose from the sea, and a long conical projection from the 

 edge of a dense black cloud. This projection always 

 pointed to the centre of the ascending cloud. The pheno- 

 menon was visible for about half an hoar. 



A discovery of ancient coiu3 quite recently made in the 

 neighbourhood of Kalisch, in Eussiin Poland, should prove 

 interesting to numismatists. Au earthenware vessel was 

 accidentally unearthed in a wooded part of the estate of 

 Bronc/.yr, containing coins dating from the tenth and 

 eleventh centuries. There are splendid specimens of the 

 silver currencies of Henry of Bavaria ; of the English 

 monarchs, Canute and Ethelred ; of Boleslaf I., Boleslaf II., 

 and Boleslaf HI., of Bohemia ; and of the Emperor Otto. 

 Besides the coins, the vessel contained some eight pounds 



