I04 



NATURE 



\_Nov. 29, I i 



papers, but the people were very full of it in Graaff Reinet. 

 It is now about a month since we first noticed it." 



Al. Carey-Hobson 



Pons' Comet and Meteors. — The Quadrantids 



I SEE in Greg's list of possible cometary radiant points there 

 is one given for Pons' Comet, the date December 6, radiant 

 point R.A. 200°, N.D. 6S°'5. The radius-vector of the cjmet 

 at its descending node is 077, so that the likelihood of a shower 

 of meteors seems very small ; but it might be worth while to 

 look out for one on the 6th of next mo ilh. 



Pons' comet was just vi^il)le to my naked eye on the evening 

 of the 19th — visible only by rare glimpscis. On the 20th it was 

 easily visilile with the naked eye, almost steadily, so that it 

 would be about of the 7th magnitude. Its tail is still very faint 

 with a 4j-inch refractor, and grows very slowly. 



I would call the attention ol observers of meteors to the favour- 

 able circumstances attending the next shower of quadrantids, as 

 regards absence of moonlight and the convenient time at which 

 the maximum will be reachel. On the other hand, the radiant 

 point will be low at thit lime, thus diminishing the number of 

 meteors visible. I have examined my observations of this 

 shower in 1S59, and fro' 1872 to 18S3, and find that the 

 maximum takes place wlieu the sun's longitude is nearly 282". 

 This will correspond at the next appirition to the middle of the 

 night of January 2. The duration of the activity of this shower 

 is short compared with that of some other periodical showers, 

 and I am making a more minute calculation of it, the result of 

 which I purpose sending to the Astronomical Register. 



Sunderland, November 27 Tiios. \Vm. Backhouse 



Meteor 



A REMARKABLE meteor appeared in the eastern sky this 

 evening at about 8. 30. Coming out of Celus it travelled slowly 

 towards Orion, being visible for five or six seconds. The head 

 was rounded in front, about one-eighth of a degree wide, tapering 

 backwards to the length of half a degree, distinctly bluish in 

 colour, and leaving an indistinct trail of about twice its own 

 length behind it. It was so bright and seemed so near that I 

 took it at first for a firework of some kind. But it was un- 

 doubtedly a meteor. It died out silently, and without breaking 

 up, at about 15° from the horizon. F. T. MoTT 



Birstal Hill, Leicester, November 20 



Some Habits of Bees and Humble-bees 

 Have any of your readers noticed, or can any account for, a 

 carious practice which I observed on several fine days this 

 autumn among the humble-bees that frequented a bed of blue 

 salvia, viz. that in piercing the calyx and upper end of the tube 

 within it, they would invariably attack it on its rigkt-hnnd side, 

 i.e. the right side of the flower as it looks straight out from the 

 stem. After having several times counted fifty or sixty such 

 attacks in succession, I gathered a number of flowers at randoai 

 and, carrying them indoors, requested my brother to lay each on 

 its side, so as to show the hole uppermost ; twenty-five out of 

 twenty-six were without he-ilation placed with the right side 

 exposed, the remaining one was considered doubtful. The 

 apparent rule of proceeding was this : — The bee alights on the 

 under midrib or keel of the calyx, Avith her head towards the 

 stem, then tuining her head and fore feet slightly round to the 

 right, inserts her proboscis just clear of the rib, the process bein;,' 

 visible only to a person standing on that side of the flower. 

 Whether the flower was on the north or south side of the bed, ia 

 shade or sunshine, made no difference, nor did it matter iu which 

 direction the bee was making her circuit round the bed. Where 

 two flowers hung so close together as 10 touch, after piercing the 

 right-hand one on its outer side, and satisfying herself that she 

 could not conveniently push her way in between the two, she woul I 

 fly off to another, losing the honey rather than attempt to reach 

 it through the left side of the flower. This occurred repeatedly. 

 Is there anything in the structure of the calyx or in the posi- 

 tion of the nectar that can explain this? Or is there a right 

 and left-handedness in some families of humble-bees ? Or can 

 it be that a habit, perhaps accidentally e>tablished, may be 

 rigidly pursued for a time, at the risk of occa-ional small lo.-se-, 

 to be afterwards abandoned wheu the impulse is worn out, cr 

 when the results are found to be not worth the trouble of form- 



ing the habit? That small gains are sometimes neglected in 

 obedience to a habit of quite recent formation, I had an instance 

 a few summers ago, when watching a number of hive bees on a 

 plant of common fuchsia. The greater part of its flowers had 

 been pierced in the upper tube (probably by humble-bees), and 

 my attention was drawn by the regularity and exactness with 

 which the bees were flying straight to the tul.ie, contrary to their 

 usual practice of entering from below. But the flowers were 

 not a'l |jierced ; and this was the curious part : uhen a bee had 

 run round the tube and ascertained that theie was no hole, she 

 would give it up at once and fly to another, as though the pres- 

 sure of the new habit would not permit any occasional recurrence 

 to the g >od old-fashioned plan of enti'ance from below. Can 

 blind ooedience to an order given out by a superior have any 

 place in apiary economy ? 



In this instance it was clear that the habit was fully formed, as 

 regarded that particular plant : I tried to witness its commence- 

 ment on another, and accordingly pierced as many flowers as I 

 could reach on a fuchsia growing at some distance from the 

 firt. A few bees discovered my holes and made use of them, 

 after which they showed considerable hesitation and confusion 

 in their mode of attack, losing much time in hovering up and 

 down as though thrown out of their usual routine ; while on 

 unpierced neighbouring plants the customary precision of aim at 

 the lower opening of the corolla prevailed without interruption. 



Reverting to the humble-bees on the blue salvias. That their 

 piercing the flower at all is an occasional and not universal 

 practice I am inclined to believe, from the totally different 

 behaviour of a set of apparently the same species (though of 

 this I cannot be certain) on the same plants during the early 

 part of la-^t autnmn. Alightinj on the lower lobe of the corolla 

 and advancing inwards, the bee's w eight forced open the throat 

 of the flower, into which she then easily inserted her head. 

 This plan was pursued with as much regularity as the opposite 

 one was this autumn. On the same days it was amusing to 

 ob erve the many fruitless attempts of hive bees to effect an 

 entrance in the same manner. Their bodies being too light to 

 weigh djwn the floor of the corolla, they would try in vain to 

 force their heads in and always had to fly away disappointed, 

 except when one more fortunate than the rest discovered a flower 

 that had dropped from its calyx, when she would eagerly insert 

 her proboscis into the open end of the tube. 



Seeing their great anxiety to obtain salvia honey, I eventually 

 expected to find them taking advantage, this year, of the holes 

 ready made for them by the humble-bees, but strange to say they 

 appeared to have quite deserted the plants, though swarming on 

 a neighbouring bed of yellow Tagetes, an occasional wanderer 

 only passing amongst the blue flowers, and without alighting. 

 Isabella Herschel 



Collingwood, Hawkhurst, Nuvember 21 



Rudolphi's Rorqual 



In a communication made to the Zoological Society on the 

 20th inst., when describing a specimen of Rudolphi's Rorqual 

 (Balivnoftera borealis), lately captured in the River Crouch, 

 Essex, I said that this was the first well authenticated example 

 of this species taken in British waters. My friend, Mr. J. 

 E. Hatting, has kindly called my attention to a paper which 

 had for the time escaped my memory, |.ublished by Prof. Turner 

 in the Journal of Anatomy and Pliysiology for April, 1882, in 

 which a specimen is described which was captured near Bo'ness 

 in the Firth of Forth in September, 1872, and of which the 

 skeleton is now preserved in the Anatomical Museum of the 

 University of Edinburgh. W. H. Flower 



November 22 



Reflection of Light 



As showing how far under favourable conditions the reflection 

 of light from a cloudy sky is visible, I may perhaps be allow ed 

 to mention that last night at nine o'clock the reflection of the 

 London lights was remarkably strong. The r,ky was uniformly 

 covered by a dense canopy of moderately high cloud, and the 

 air very moist (humidity 95). Under such circumstances I have 

 frequently seen at the sajie time the reflection of the London 

 Brighton, Eastbourne, Hastings, and Tunbridge Wells lights . 

 Init last night this reflection in ihe case of Ltmdon was pecu- 

 liarly strong. Ill former years the light was of a reddish yellow, 

 as is still the case with the lights of the other places named. But 



