May io, 1883] 



NATURE 



3i 



tion by prismatic ice-crystals at high elevations, the parhelia 

 always appear on the horizontal parheliacal ring which passes 

 through the centre of the sun, and generally at the intersection 

 of this ring with the vertical halo. The two parhelia must 

 therefore always lie in a line parallel to the horizon, and at the 

 same elevation as the sun itself. The same laws regulate the 

 appearance of the paraselenae or mock moons. It therefore 

 surprised me to learn that the left-hand mock moon appeared at 

 a greater distance from the horizon than the right-hand one. It 

 seemed to me to be " unaccountably out of place." That the 

 circle should have subtended an angle of 50°, as stated by 

 " Sm.," is in itself unusual. The normal diameter is understood 

 to be from 44° to 47°. Did " Sm." actually measure it? To 

 my judgment it was considerably more than this, but of course 

 mere estimates are not trustworthy. I do not see how a " change 

 of level of the refracting cloud " should alter the position of the 

 mock moons. This must depend upon the relative positions of 

 the moon and the observer's eye. If the cloud is not in the 

 right place no mock moons will be seen. I should be glad of a 

 satisfactory explanation of the phenomenon recorded. 



Birstal Hill, Leicester, May 7 F. T. Mott 



Referring to a letter from Mr. F. T. Mott in Nature, 

 vol. xxvii. p. 606, I find that at midnight on April 16 the 

 moon's apparent altitude at Leicester was not more than 26 ; 

 so that after allowing for the difficulty of seeing the actual 

 horizon, and taking also into account the breadth of the halo, it 

 seems improbable that the halo observed by Mr. Mott was of 

 unusual size. 



I have, however, seen a description somewhere of a parhelion 

 — measured with a sextant about the end of last century — which 

 had a semidiameter of 26°. It would be interesting to know 

 whether such irregularities in the dimensions of these phenomena 

 have been accurately ascertained. R. C. Johnson 



19, Catherine Street, Liverpool 



Sun Pillar of April 6, 1883 



It may be of interest to record the various points from which 

 the above phenomenon was seen. I was at St. David's with a 

 party of geological students, and we watched it for some time as 

 we were returning from the coast at sunset. 



Cambridge Thos. McKenny Hughes 



Fibreballs 



I read with much interest the letters of Prof. G. H. Darwin 

 and "J. H.," Nature, vol. xxvii. pp. 507, 580. On the 

 coast of i'outh Australia, especially on the Coorong beach, I 

 have seen fibreballs in great quantity ; some larger than a 

 cricket ball, and perfectly spherical, hard, and well-matted ; 

 others tapering and having the form of an exceedingly long 

 ellipse. I brought home many specimens. These are now in 

 the Wragge Museum at Stafford ; and I shall be happy to have 

 some forwarded for Prof. Darwin's inspection. 



Fort William Clement L. Wragge 



Helix pomatia 



Only a few more lines to say, in consequence of the com- 

 munication of Mr. Stokoe in your last number (p. 6), that he 

 will find the mollusca in their geological relations treated in the 

 introduction to my work on " British Conchology," vol. i. p. cix. 

 The distribution of H. pomatia in this country and on the Con- 

 tinent is noticed in pp. 177 and 178 of that volume, and in the 

 supplement to the fifth volume. J. Gwyn Jeffreys 



1, The Terrace, Kensington, May 4 



I have four.d this freely in the hedge-tottoms of Hertford- 

 shire lanes, where the soil was a dark alluvial mould, certainly 

 not cretaceous. I suspect that even in its known localities it is 

 very local. Henry Cecil 



Bregner, Bournemouth, May 5 



In two of the localities mentioned for this snail — Dorking, 

 Surrey ; and Woodford, Northamptonshire — there seems some 

 reason to suspect it to be a modern introduction. From 1849 



to 1852 I lived within two miles of Woodford, and often found 

 the shells in a small wood known as Woodford Shrubbery. It 

 was commonly said in the neighbourhood at that time that the 

 snails were brought from abroad by the gentleman — I think 

 General Arbuthnot — who had formed the Shrubbery some thirty 

 years before that date. 



I also found, many years ago, shells of the same species about 

 the foot of Box Hill, near Dorking, and was told by a former 

 resident in that neighbourhood that the snails were brought from 

 Italy by Mr. Hope, of Deepdene, who was well known in the 

 early part of this century as a writer on the mediaeval architecture 

 of Italy. I give the statements for what they may be worth. 



Loughton J. C. 



Intelligence in Animals 



In addition to the long list of "emotions which resemble 

 human intelligence as occurring in animals below the human 

 species," as given by your correspondent on the authority of Dr. 

 Romanes (Nature, vol. xxvii. p. 580), and the instance of 

 "benevolence" subsequently cited, I venture to submit the 

 following as illustrating something very like the emotion of 

 contempt. 



Until recently our domesticated animals included two cats — one 

 a very fine tabby (a trimmed male) of somewhat morose nature, 

 and a pretty little black cat, a half-bred Persian (a female) of 

 very gentle character. On a noticeable occasion the tabby cat 

 caught a mouse and ate it all up with much relish in a comer of 

 the room. The proceeding was watched with much interest by 

 the black cat from her place on the hearthrug. After the tabby 

 had finished his repast he also took up his place on the hearth- 

 rug. The black cat then went over and smelled the spot where 

 the dainty morsel had been devoured. Upon this the tabby cat 

 came up and "boxed" the black cat's ears once or twice, as 

 who should say, "What business have you with my affairs? 

 catch your own mice ! " W. R. Hughes 



Handsworth Wood, near Birmingham, May 5 



May I contribute another case of higher thought in the lower 

 animals. At the farm of Granton Mains, near Edinburgh, an 

 old cat had become blind ; her daughter had kittens. The 

 daughter was observed bringing in a sparrow to the boiler-house, 

 where her blind mother and her half-grown kittens were 

 warming themselves : the kittens came up to get the sparrow, 

 but their mother kept them off and gave the sparrow to her 

 mother, and watched whilst she ate it. She was frequently seen 

 to give other food to her blind mother. 



My children have a fox terrier bitch, " Dot." Dot loves to 

 kill anything from a cat to a mouse, and sometimes a wild 

 rabbit gets into the garden, and it is a red-letter day for Dot and 

 the children. But the children have also tame rabbits ; of cour.- e 

 any one who knows dogs will understand that it is simple to 

 teach them not to touch pets — for instance, the cat of their own 

 house. But Dot had a curious case to decide. The children 

 had found a nest of wild rabbits, and two of the tame rabbits 

 (black and white) had made a hole in a bank and there had 

 young ones. This nest was respected by Dot. The children 

 took the young wild rabbits (gray) and fostered them on the 

 tame ones by slipping them into the nest. A few days after this, 

 Dot must have discovered these gray young ones with the black 

 and white. Had she found them anywhere else, one snap, and 

 they were dead ; but this was the line she took : she was found 

 at the front door under the porch with one of the young gray 

 rabbits, quite fifty yards from the nest ; it was quite unhurt, 

 although it died afterwards, I believe from cold and exposure at 

 the time. Are we to suppose that Dot wished to ask the ques- 

 tion, ' ' May I kill this gray one ? " Duncan Stewart 



Knockrioch, May 2 



THE SOLAR ECLIPSE OF 1883 



THIS eclipse, as our readers have already been made 

 aware, took place on Sunday last, and we may hope, 

 although we shall not know for more than a month, that 

 the weather was favourable. We shall not hear whether 

 the French arrived in time, but we do know that the 

 English observers met the American party, consisting of 

 Prof. Holden, Dr. Hastings, Mr. Rockwell, Mr. Preston, 



