224 Keegan: The Chemistry of some Common Plants. © 
usually free from the ordinary organic acids, and thus (though 
both plants are perennial) the contrast between it and the 
Goosefoot is very striking. The pigment of the petals is not 
well developed, and this, notwithstanding the fact that tannin 
abounds in all the vegetative organs. In October the roots 
contain a tannin which gives a beautiful blue-black pre- 
cipitate with peracetate of iron, also they have a little free 
phloroglucin and phlobaphene, but no starch or sugar. 
CLEAVERS (Galium aparine)—This is a well-known weed 
of the hedgerows, and of corn crops on lightish loams, and deep 
open soils, rarely seen on heavy land, but it flourishes on stony 
places in close company with clusters of nettles. Prickles 
(trichomes, 1.e., outgrowths of the epidermis) are developed on 
the angles of the stem, margins of the leaves, and all over the 
fruit. It is a strong nitrate plant with great transpiration, and 
no mycorhiza. On 15th July the whole dried plant yielded 1.4 
per cent. carotin and wax without any fat-oil; there were 
mere traces of tannin or tannoid, but a good deal of glucose 
and cane sugar, also a resin, but no phloroglucin ; there was 
much mucilage, quinic acid, and considerable proteid, reserve 
starch and oxalate of calctum. The tops extracted in June 
with cold water yielded much rubichloric acid, also tannin, 
quinic acid, and a little cane sugar. The ash contained 48-3 
per cent. soluble salts, 5-9 silica, 20-3 lime, 5-7 magnesia and 
manganese, 4P?O°, 2-3SO? and 3:9 chlorine; there was very 
much soluble carbonate. Experiments as to the presence 
of vegetable rennet in the fresh tops gave negative results, 
though the milk-coagulating faculty of the sap seems un- 
doubtedly to exist in warm climates. The roots contain some 
glucoside, which dyes red like madder, and the seeds are used 
as a substitute for coffee. Clearly we have here an organism 
with energetic assimilatory power, and whose albumenoid on 
deassimilation produces abundant organic acid (citric and 
oxalic mainly), and also higher derivatives of benzene. 
—_s > _—_ 
Great Grey Shrike in East Yorks.— One of these birds has 
been, during the past fortnight, frequently noticed at Lowthorpe. 
My informant describes the bird well, and reminds me that 
one was picked up dead under the telegraph wires, between 
Bridlington and Burton Agnes, some ten winters ago, the 
skin of which Ihave. The bird in question has been frequenting 
a certain fence, and has been seen more than once to take a 
mouse from its stand on the topmost twig of a hedgerow ash 
tree, as my correspondent writes, ‘more easily and quickly 
than a kestrel hawk could have done.’ The bird is now doubt- 
less further on its way to its breeding grounds in the north.— 
W. H. St. QUINTIN, 15th May, Ig1I. 
Naturalist, 
