Apbil 2, 1900.] 



KNOWLEDGE. 



89 



flight of Bitterns in Devonshire was in tlic winter of 

 1S90-91.— W. S!. M DTkhan. Newport House, near 

 Exeter. 



Winter Visitors to Uevonshiue. — On the 11th De- 

 cember. 1S99, a great movement of birds tcok {)h\ce 

 from the eastward, and there was a great influx of lap- 

 wings, golden plovers, ducks, coots, water rails, snipe, 

 dunlins, mistle thrushes, chaffinches, starlings, larks, 

 and ring doves, into South Devon. Thci'e was a severe 

 frost on the 14th and 15th, followed by a south-wester- 

 ly gale on the 16th. About this time there was a run 

 on the holly-berries, and they were soon cleared off by 

 the mistle thrushes and ring doves, which filled tlieir 

 crops almost to bursting with them. There was an- 

 other influx of birds on 13th January, 1900, when vast 

 flocks of lapwings again showed themselves, and ring 

 doves, coots, and wild ducks again became numerous. 

 On 26th January, song thrushes appeared in astonish- 

 ing numbers on grass fields, and thj bushes in the 

 shrubbery after d;irk were alive with them. Black- 

 birds, mistle thrushes, and starlings also became very 

 plentiful. When the frost set in on February 8th, 

 redwings became extremely plentiful here, feeding 

 amongst the undergrowth in the wood. Fieldfares 

 were not numerous here, but Mr. E. A. S. Elliot in- 

 forms me that after the heavy snow storm on the 13th, 

 they appeared in extraordinary numbers at Kingsbridge. 

 Lapwings and redwings became extremely weak here, 

 and the latter fell an easy prey to cats and sparrow- 

 hawks.— W. S. M. D Urban. 



Wild Robins as Pets. — Last summer we remarked 

 some young Robins in our garden, which seemed in- 

 clined to become familial', and sitting out daily in my 

 Bath chair I amused myself feeding them, and very soon 

 induced two or three of them to take crumbs from my 

 hand. One in particular became so tame that my 

 daughter suggested trying him with pieces of biscuit 

 held between the lips, and after one or two trials he 

 came quite freely, flj'ing from grsater distances each 

 day, and poising like a hawk moth before snatching 

 the morsel from our lips. This became a regular game 

 with the bird, and two of his companions soon followed 

 his example, and took biscuit from our lips, when they 

 had quantities of other food dug up by the gardener. 

 I am sorry to say our six pet Robins fight furiously, 

 and a hen Blackbird often watches for, and secures the 

 crumbs they let fall. — Frances T. Battersby, Cromlvn, 

 Rathowen, W. Meath. 



Egg Inclosed in another. — A friend has recently 

 sent me two eggs laid by one of his pigeons. One of 

 them is of unusual size (2^ inches in length), the 

 other a little less than li inches in length, i.e., a little 

 under the normal measurement. The .small egg wa-s 

 found inside the big one. This is the only instance that 

 has come to my notice of one egg being enclosed within 

 another egg. — F. W. Headley, Haileybui-y. 



[A similar occurrence in the case of a fowl's egg 

 was reported in the " Field " for September 2nd, 1899, 

 when the Editor made the following remarks: — "The 

 occurrence is uncommon if considered in proportion to 

 the number of eggs laid, probably one in many thou- 

 sand ; nevertheless, a year rarely passes that we do not 

 receive a specimen. The explanation of the curiosity 

 is as follows : Normally, the yolk, as it passes down 

 the long oviduct, is enveloped in the concentric layers 

 of the white, then the membrane, and finally the shell. 

 If, in place of being extruded, an abnormal i-eversed 

 action of the oviduct takes place, the egg is carried 

 back, and meeting with a second descending yolk, both 



are included in the outer coverings, and one egg within 

 anolher results. "^TI. F. W.] 



All contrihulionx to the idlumti, either in the way of notes 

 or pliotofiraphs, should he forwanlt'l to Harry 1'. Witiierhy, 

 lit 1, Eliot Place, Blackheath, Kent. 



Astronomy — more particularly the domain of celestial 

 chemistry — is the poorer by the loss of Charles Piazzi 

 Smyth, formerly Astronomer-Royal for Scotland. Th ! 

 son of Admiral W. H. Smyth, he was born at Naples, 

 3id January, 1819. Called " Piazzi " after the discoverer 

 of Ceres, he early took to the science, and became assistant 

 at the Cape Observatory at the age of sixteen. In 1845. 

 at the age of 26, he became Astronomer-Royal for Scot- 

 land, beginning his work with great anticipations wliicli. 

 alas I were destined to be congealed in a frigid sea of 

 officialdom. After more than forty years' serv'ce he 

 retired to Clova, near Ripoii, [jrotesiing against the 

 degenerating influence of ri-d-tape. In retirement the 

 ex- Astronomer-Royal devoted himself to the photo- 

 graphic study of the solar spectrum and of cloud forms 

 He gave the first detailed descriptions of the telluric 

 bands; introduced the "end-on" mode of viewing 

 vacuum tubes, and adverted to the significance of the 

 " rainband " for weather prediction. "While at Edin- 

 burgh he reduced and published his predeccs'or s 

 (Henderson) observations; installed, in 1855, a time- 

 lall on the Calton Hill, and compiled an extensive s*ar- 

 catalogue. At Teneriffe, in 1856, he studied the quality 

 of astronomical " seeing " at high levels, notwithstanding 

 the persistence of "dust-haze''" to a height of 11,000 

 feet. In 1882, at Madeira, he investigated the solar 

 radiations with a fine Rutherford " grating. ' " Life and 

 Work at the Great Pyramid," published by Smyth in 

 1867, exhibits a phase of thought which provoked" much 

 lontrovcrsy at the time and led to the author's resig- 

 nation, in 1874, of the Fellowship of the Royal Society. 

 The Great ."Pyramid was erected, in his view, under th ^ 

 eye of Melchisedech, and its interpretation horalde^' the 

 beginning of the millennium in 1882. 



ACROSS THE DOWNS. 



By Grenville A. J. Cole, m.r.i.a., f.g.s.. Professor of 



Geology in the Royal College of Science for Ireland. 

 From Dorchester to Norwich, from Flamborough Head 

 to Beachy Head, we all know the broad chalk uplands, 

 broken at one point by the composite valley of the Wash, 

 at another by the clays and sands of London, and again 

 by the wooded excavation of the Weald. There are no 

 peaks, and few decided summits, on these plateaux ; 

 from the long back of the Cotteswolds, we see in the 

 south-east the next great step of England facing us, 

 its top almost level, and sending out spurs into the richer 

 country at its feet. The scarp rises smoothly, 

 covered with short grass; the cloud-shadows sweep 

 across it, unbroken and well outlined, forming almost 

 a picture of the sky; and here and there a clump of 

 beech-trees, or a circular British camp, forms the only 

 feature on the crest. At morning or evening, however, 

 the level sunlight picks out the combes on the escarp 

 ment, great rounded hollows, in which trees may cluster 

 along some ancient watercourse. Elsewhere, it is a dry 

 country, and most of the streams that carved out the 

 combes have long since vanished into the earth 



This typical scarp can be seen on the way from 



