226 



NA TURE 



{July 5, 1883 



' ' Whereas, according to the image in this place, the wild branches 

 are ingrafted into the generous tree, reversing the usual process 

 by which good branches are grafted into wild trees, we are in- 

 formed by both ancient and modern writers that such a process 

 is practicable in this very tree, the olive, and is often practised 

 in the East. Compare Columella ' De Rebus Rusticis,' v. g." 

 Can this be confirmed? It seems scarcely credible. The 

 question bears on the subject of graft-hybridisation, about which 

 many curious facts are collected in Darwin's work on "Variation 

 under Domestication." Joseph John Murphy 



Old Forge, Dunmurry, Co. Antrim, June 29 



Wild Duck and Railways 



Last autumn I visited Canada and made a journey to the ex- 

 treme west point (then reached) of the Canada Pacific Railway, 

 on which three or four thousand men were at the time employed 

 laying down the rails on the prairie, at the very rapid rate of 

 three or four miles a day, or more than twenty miles a week. 

 There are many ponds and lakelets along the track, which 

 abounded at that season with a variety of ducks — mallard, teal, 

 widgeon, &c. — usually very shy, and not easily approached by 

 the sportsman. Yet these ducks had in the short space of from 

 two to five days become so accustomed to the noisy and (to most 

 of the birds) novel engine moving along, that they remained 

 sitting quietly in the water within easy shot when the train was 

 passing. On my return journey I was sorry to find (that this 

 confidence on the part of the ducks was taken advantage of by 

 the conductor and other wretched sportsmen (?) » ho shut at the 

 poor birds from the plaiform cf the cars whilst in motion, 

 although when they did kill — I am glad to say there were more 

 misses than hits — they c< mid not stop to pick up the game. A 

 sportsman, to get equally near to the ducks as they permitted 

 the train to approach them, had to use the cover of the long 

 grass and some artful dodging to attain his object. This quick 

 intelligence on the part of the ducks seemed to me something 

 remarkable, as the senses both of sight and hearing must have 

 been, one would suppose, at first alarmingly affected by the 

 great noisy, smoking monster rushing along their favourite and 

 hitherto u-ually silent haunts. John Rae 



4, Addison Gardens, June 30 



Large Hailstones 



A severe thunderstorm passed over Woodlesford, six miles 

 south-east of Leeds, between 3.10 and 4 p.m. this afternoon, 

 proceeding from south-west to north-east. Flashes of lightning 

 during that ;ime were almost continuous. At 3.15 heavy rain 

 began to fall, becoming so thick at 3.25 as to render objects a 

 short distance away almost indistinct; at 3. 30 this changed to 

 hail, the stones during the worst period being generally irregular 

 parallelopipeds of ice, with two edges of about one inch each, 

 and the third of one-quarter of an inch. These blocks consisted 

 of hard, colourless, transparent ice, surrounding a central, ir- 

 regularly-shaped mass of opaque white, small air-bubhles of 

 roughly ellipsoidal shape being ranged round this. The white 

 nucleus was not quite so hard as the exterior transparent coating. 

 The force of collision on the railway line was sufficient to make 

 the masses bound to a vertical height- of two or three feet. At 

 3.45 the hail had moderated, when a few light loose clouds were 

 observed quickly passing from north-east to south-west, and thus 

 directly opposite to the direction of the storm, and at a much 

 lower level. R. Webb 



June 30 



Extinction of Flatfish 



I HAVE been advised by Mr. Murray of the Challenger expe- 

 dition to inquire, through your columns, whether the experience 

 of any of your correspondents coincides with mine as to the 

 gradual failure — in some places almost the extinction — of flatfish 

 where whelk-gathering is prosecuted. Malcolm McNeill 



The New Club, Edinburgh, June 30 



Garfish 



In March last I was being pulled off from the shore to 

 H.M.S. Himalaya in the harbour at Aden, when a fish jumped 

 out of the water over the boat, and in doing so struck the hat of 

 another officer and knocked it into the water. When the hat 



was recovered we found in the hard felt a slit about four inches 

 in length. Unfortunately the fish escaped, but the impression 

 of those who saw it was that it was some kind of garfish, and that 

 the damage done was inflicted by the beak. It appeared to 

 me to be about ten inches long. It is obvious that had the 

 fish struck my friend in the face or neck, or even in the chest, it 

 might have resulted in a fatal injury. S. Archer 



bheerness, June 29 



The " Spirogyra quinina" 



Can any of your readers inform me of any practical method 

 of exterminating, in a lodge or reservoir, confervoid alga;, more 

 especially the fine filamentous variety Spirogyra quinina ? 



Hanley, Staffordshire, June 19 Fredk. Haigh 



ACTION OF LIGHT ON INDIARUBBER 



IN continuation of the experiments described in 

 Nature, vol. xxvii. p. 312, two pieces of caout- 

 chouc tube, about 48 mm. long and 7 mm. wide, were 

 introduced on January 23, 1883, into U-st tubes contain- 

 ing oxygen confined over mercury. One of these tubes 

 was surrounded by a case of black paper, and both tubes 

 were placed side by side in a north window. On June 27 

 the tubes were examined : in that exposed to light about 

 17 cc. of oxygen (about three-quarters of the gas the test 

 tube at first contained) had been absorbed, and the indi 1- 

 rubber had become altered, so that on pressing the tube 

 between the fingers superficial cracks were produced. In 

 the other test tube no appreciable diminution of gas had 

 taken place, and the caoutchouc was unchanged, thus 

 fully confirming the results of the former experiments. 

 We may therefore conclude that caoutchouc alters under 

 the combined influence of light and oxygen, but that 

 neither alone produces any effect. 

 Cooper's Hill, June 29 Herbert McLeod 



ON WHALES, PAST AND PRESENT, AND 

 THEIR PROBABLE ORIGIN 1 



II. 



THOUGH the early stages by which whalebone has been 

 modified from more simple palate structures are en- 

 tirely lost to our sight, probably forever, the conditions in 

 which it now exists in different species of whales, show 

 very marked varieties of progress, from a simple com- 

 paratively rudimental and impertect condition, to what is 

 perhaps the most wonderful example of mechanical adap- 

 tation to purpose known in any organic structure. These 

 variations are worth dwelling upon for a few minutes, as 

 they illustrate in an excellent manner the gradual modifica- 

 tions that may take place in an organ, evidently in adap- 

 tation to particular requirements, the causation of which 

 can be perfectly explained upon Darwin's principle of 

 natural selection. 



In the Rorquals or fin-whales (genus Bali?/wfilt-ra),{oxmd 

 in almost all seas, and so well known off our own coasts, the 

 largest blades in an animal of 70 feet in length do not exceed 

 2 feet in length, including their hairy terminations ; tin y 

 are in most species of a pale horn colour, and their struc- 

 ture is coarse and inelastic, separating into thick, stiff 

 fibres, so that they are of no value for the ordinary pur- 

 poses to which whalebone is applied in the arts. These 

 animals feed on fish of considerable size, from herrings 

 up to cod, and for foraging among shoals of these crea- 

 tures the construction of their mouth and the structure of 

 their baleen is evidently sufficient. This is the type of 

 the earliest known extinct forms of whales, and it has 

 continued to exist, with several slight modifications, to 

 this day, because it has fulfilled one purpose in the 

 economy of nature. Other purposes for which it was not 



1 Lecture delivered at the Royal Institution on the evening of Friday, 

 May 25, 1883, by Prof. Flower, LL.D., F.K.S.. P.Z.S., &c. Concluded 

 from p. ao2. 



