Fune 16, 1870] 
-NATURE 
pag 
dome. On the horizon indeed these indications cease to serve 
us ; there the clouds, like the mountains, appear to be evenly 
painted on a vertical or nearly vertical background, which gradu- 
ally passes into the surface of the earth below, and into the fir- 
mament above. Now, since the senses supply no criteria by 
which we distinguish between the distance of the clouds and 
that of the sky, it seems only natural that we should ascribe 
to the one the ascertained form of the other, so far, at 
least, as we can separate them. This, I believe, is the way 
in which our conception of the sky, as a flat domelike vault, 
must originate, vague, variable, indefinite as that conception 
undoubtedly is. 
‘* Moreover, the apparent increase in the size of the sun or 
the moon is never very striking or decided, except at those times 
when the air near the horizon is heavily charged with vapour, 
and when, as a necessary consequence, the heavenly bodies in 
question only shine with a very feeble light ; we have then the 
very same effect with which we are perfectly familiar in the 
case of distant mountains. They appear more distant than they 
do when the air is clear, and therefore larger. Moreover, when 
suitable terrestrial objects happen to be placed near the horizon, 
they add very much to the effect. When, for instance, the moon 
sets near a tree some twenty feet in diameter, and about 1,000 
yards off, as she subtends the same visual angle, and is known to 
be far more distant, she appears to be very much larger; whereas, 
when the moon sets behind a flat horizon, there is no object of 
comparison to enable us to perceive that her small apparent 
may represent a very great adso/ufe magnitude. 
“When I look at the moon reflected from a piece of parallel 
glass, so that her image appears to be very near the horizon, I 
do not find that the image looks decidedly larger than the moon 
herself seen directly high in the sky, although in this way it 
is easy to compare the apparent magnitude of the reflected 
image with that of the terrestrial objects seen together with 
it. In this case it is evident the reflected image has not 
the effect of being seen through the vaporous ; portion of the 
atmosphere. 
“°To my eye, the apparent increase in magnitude near the 
horizon is much more apparent in the case of the moon than in 
that of the sun. When the form of the sun can be distin- 
guished at all, his light is generally so dazzling that we cannot 
look at him steadily, and consequently cannot compare 
him directly with any terrestrial objects that happen to be 
on the horizon. Even in the case of the moon when the 
sky is quite clear, the delusion is not so apparent. In all 
cases the delusion depends in a very great degree on the state 
of the atmosphere.” 
Occurrence of the Little Egret 
AN adult specimen of the Little Egret (Ardea garzetta, Linn.) 
was shot at the end of last month, on the mud-flats below Top- 
sham, a town on the Exe, four miles below Exeter, and has 
unfortunately fallen into private hands. This is the first known 
occurrence of this beautiful bird on the Exe, but two or three 
specimens were recorded from the Dart and Tamar more than 
fifty years ago. ‘The last specimen obtained in South Devon was 
killed in April 1851. 
A nearly adult male Montagu’s Harrier was shot near Christon, 
Devon, last month, and I have obtained it for the collection in 
this Institution. The female bird has since been seen. 
W. S. M. D’URBAN 
Devon and Exeter Albert Memorial Museum, 
Queen Street, Exeter, June 13 
Pinkish Colour of the Sun 
In addition to the several accounts of the curious pinkish 
appearance of the sun, noticed in the numbers for May 26 and 
June 2 of your journal, it may perhaps interest your correspon- 
dents and the readers of NATURE to know that the sun pre- 
sented a round dise of a very unusual pinkish colour, here and 
at Cranbrook (about five miles north-east from Hawkhurst), in 
Kent, between five and six o’clock P.M. on the afternoon of 
Monday, the 23rd ult. It was so seen by myself at Cranbrook, 
in company with several others, who thought that the colour was 
quite unusual, shining through a thick haze of apparently low 
cirrostratus, but which was perhaps rain cloud, as the air at the 
H 
time was light from the north, and cold, while the mist, or haze, 
seemed to be at no very great elevation above the ground, and 
considerably lower than those ordinary forms of cirrostratus in 
which halos and mock-suns are generally seen. 
The colour observed here wasa pinkish buff, or such a mixture 
of pink and yellow as to suggest the abundance of more blue and 
violet, and the absence of more yellow light than in the orange 
and reddish tints, generally seen in the setting sun, so as to 
resemble the colour of very pale blotting-paper, or a light 
flesh-colour. While the disc was still clearly seen of this colour, 
two or three sun-spots were visible upon it with the naked eye. 
These could no longer be distinguished at six o’clock, when the 
peculiar pinkish hue was also succeeded by the ordinary yellow 
of the sun’s disc near the horizon, seen through a thick haze. 
On the same afternoon (of the 23rd) the appearance of the sun’s 
round disc through a thick cloud of haze in the sky was noticed, 
for a considerable time, as visible with rare and unusual distinct- 
ness at Tunbridge Wells, in Kent. 
A. S, HERSCHEL 
Collingwood, Hawkhurst, June § 
La Petite Culture en Belgique 
I ENCLOSE drawings of earthern pots, which I observed nailed 
against the south side of a farm-house near this. These pots 
; are for sparrows’ nests, and the young, when fledged, are taken 
and eaten. I think this form of ‘‘ La petite culture” cannot be 
commended in a country so swarming with insects as Belgium, 
and I infer from the careful make of the pots that the custom is 
not a new one, though it may be new to some of the readers of 
NATURE. N, A. STAPLES 
Louvain, June 4 
