Mar. 14, 1872J 



NATURE 



38: 



visible for probably forty seconds. Tt appeared first as if 

 approaching from the W.S.W. about 40" or 50° above the 

 horizon, unusually large and bright, and leaving a long train of 

 bright spots behind. After a few seconds it seemed extinguished, 

 but in a moment or two flashed out again still brighter, appa- 

 rently passing due E., at a height of about 25° or 30°, through Eri- 

 danus, Lepus, Canis Major, and Argo, and much slower than at 

 first. While passing under Orion two protuberances burst out, 

 giving it the appearance of an arrowhead, or rather a bird flying, 

 as it appeared to have a tail which at the end was a fine smoke 

 colour: it now occupied the space of ii° or 2°. Passing behind a 

 cloud below Regulus it disappeared. 

 Waterford, March 9 James Budd 



"Whin" 



Can you or any of your readers furnish a probable etymology 

 of the word ic///« .' Over all the north of England and south of 

 Scoland basalt is so called. Here we have theic//;'«-siIl or strati- 

 form basalt — rL'/i/;/-dykes, or geological fissures filled with basalt. 

 The vocabularies in treatises on geology give no derivation of this 

 prevalent mining term. In Scotland whin seems to typify the 

 hardest mineral known. Burns makes Death say in " Hornbuik," 

 "I micht as weel hae tried a quarry o' hard iiihi)i rock." Surely 

 a satisfactory root for the word in question can be found in 

 Celtic, Old Norse, Danish, or Anglo-Saxon ! The Old Norse 

 "fors" is found in the names of several local waterfalls, as for 

 instance "High Fc5rce" in Teesdale. At this "force" the 

 river Tees is precipitated over a whin-stone cliff, Soft. high. 



Wm. R. Bell 



Laithkirk Vicarage, Mickleton, March 12 



CUCKOO AND PIPIT 



SEVERAL well-known naturalists who have seen my 

 sketch from life of the young cuckoo ejecting the 

 young pipit (opposite p. 22 of the little versified tale of 

 which I send a copy)* have expressed a wish that the 

 details of my observations of the scene should be pub- 

 lished. I therefore send you the facts, though the sketch 

 itself seems to me to be the only important addition I 

 have made to the admirably accurate description given 

 by Dr. Jenner in his letter to John Hunter, which is 

 printed in the " Pliilosophical Transactions" for 1788 

 (vol. Ixxviii., pp. 223, 226), and which I have read with 

 pleasure since putting down my own notes. 



The nest which we watched last June, after finding the 

 cuckoo's egg in it, was that of the common meadow pipit 

 (Titlark, Mosscheeper), and had two pipit's eggs besides 

 that of the cuckoo. It was below a heather bush, on the 

 declivity of a low abrupt bank on a Highland hill-side in 

 Moidart. 



At one visit the pipits were found to be hatched, but 

 not the cuckoo. At the next visit, which was after an 

 interval of forty-eight hours, we found the young cuckoo 

 alone in the nest, and both the young pipits lying down 

 the bank, about ten inches from the margin of the nest, 

 but quite lively after being warmed in the hand. They 

 were replaced in the nest beside the cuckoo, which 

 straggled about till it got its back under one of them, 

 when it climbed backwards directly up the open side of 

 the nest, and hitched the pipit from its back on to the 

 edge. It then stood quite upright on its legs, which were 

 straddled wide apart, with the claws firmly fixed half-way 

 down the inside of the nest among the interlacing fibres 

 of which the nest was woven ; and, stretching its wings 

 apart and backwards, it elbowed the pipit fairly over the 

 margin so far that its struggles took it down the bank 

 instead of back into the nest. 



After this the cuckoo stood a minute or two, feeling 

 back with its wings, as if to make sure that the pipit was 



* "The Pipit.s," illustrated by Mrs. Hugh Bl.ickbiirn (Glasgow: Macle- 

 hose. TS72). _ ^ 



fairly overboard, and then subsided into the bottom of the 

 nest. 



As it was getting late, and the cuckoo did not imn;- 

 mediately set to work on the other nestling, I replaced the 

 ejected one, and went home. On returning next day, 

 both nestlings were found, dead and cold, out of the nsit. 

 I replaced one of them, but the cuckoo made no effort to 

 get under and eject it, but settled itself contentedly on the 

 top of it. All this I find accords accurately with Jenner's 

 description of what he saw. But what struck me most 

 was this : The cuckoo was perfectly naked, without a 

 vestige of a feather or even a hint of future feathers ; its 

 eyes were not yet opened, and its neck seemed too weak 

 to support the weight of its head. The pipits had well- 

 developed quills on the wings and back, and had bright 

 eyes, partially open ; yet they seemed quite helpless under 

 the manipulations of the cuckoo, which looked a much 

 less developed creature. The cuckoo's legs, however, 

 seemed very muscular, and it appeared to feel about with 

 its wings, which were absolutely featherless, as with hands, 

 the " spurious wing " (unusually large in proportion) look- 

 ing like a spread-out thumb. The most singular thino- of 

 all was the direct purpose w-ith which the blind little 

 monster made for the open side of the nest, the only part 

 where it could throw its burthen down the bank. I think 

 all the spectators felt the sort of horror and awe at the 

 apparent inadequacy of the creature's intelligence to its 

 acts that one might have felt at seeing a toothless hag 

 raise a ghost by an incantation. It was horribly " un- 

 canny " and "grewsome." J. B. 



The University, Glasgow 



DR. G. E. DAY 



T N a former number, under the date of February 8, we 

 -■- had the painful duty of announcing the death, at the 

 age of fifty-six, of Dr. George Edward Day, F.R.S., 

 Emeritus Chandos Professor of Medicine in the Univer- 

 sity of St. Andrews, which took place at Torquay on 

 January3i, 1S72. Most of his earlier friends had probably 

 heard of the sad accident which reduced him to a s:a!;e of 

 bodily helplessness, and whic'n darkened his latter years ; 

 but few of those who remembered him only as the genial 

 witty Cantab, overflowing with life and spirits, and as the 

 brilliant medical studeat at Edinburgh, carrying every- 

 thing before him in class-room and debating hall, or 

 later, as the active untiring President of the Medical 

 Examinations at St. Andrews, would have supposed him 

 capable of the cheerful resignation with which he sub- 

 mitted to his enforced exclusion from all participation in 

 active, professional, and social life. 



The story of Dr. Day's life is a sad record of brilliant 

 expectations suddenly wrecked, and long continued 

 struggles against irreparable calamities. 



As the eldest son of a wealthy country gentleman of 

 good position, his fortune seemed assured from his birth ; 

 but the failure of the Swansea Bank in 1825, when he was 

 scarcely ten years old, ruined his father, and led to his 

 removal to the house of a widowed grandmother. 



In 1834, after some preparation under a private tutor, 

 he went up to Cambridge with the reputation of an able 

 mathematician, and a good classical scholar. .\X the 

 University he worked splendidly by fits and starts, but the 

 period between 1834 and 1837 does not belong to the 

 working era of Cambridge, and George Day's natural 

 love of fun and the fascination of his manner combined 

 to render his society especially attractive to his comrades, 

 and the result was, that he came out as losv as twelfth 

 among the wranglers of his year. 



On leaving Cambridge he resolved to adopt medicine 

 as his future profession, and went to Edinburgh, where 

 he at once took his place arn,ong that brilliant band of 



