April 13, 188S.] 



SCIENTIFIC NE^A/S. 



551 



one nor the other. That drops of a red or reddish fluid 

 did actually appear on walls, on roads, on trees, and 

 possibly on the garments of the ,'people need not — or 

 rather cannot — be denied. But they were not blood. 

 Their number would no doubt be grossly exaggerated, 

 and all accompanying circumstances would be distorted 

 by the fears of superstitious beholders. We must re- 

 member that from the time of Socrates down to the 

 seventeenth century the people of Europe, irrespective 

 of nationality, were, perhaps, the worst observers who 

 have ever lived. They had been taught by the over- 

 rated Greek philosopher just mentioned and by his fol- 

 lowers, heathen and Christian alike, to turn away their 

 attention from nature and to concern themselves with 

 words and abstractions. Hence, as regards simple matters 

 of fact the evidence of an Arab or an American Indian 

 is much more trustworthy than that of a mediaeval 

 ■ Englishman, Frenchman, Italian, or German. 



At the same meeting of the Academy of Sciences, when 

 the letter of M. Delauney was communicated, M. Blan- 

 chard gave the following explanation of these alleged 

 showers of bloods or of bloody water : — " Certain waters 

 occasionally present a bright red colouration. On the 

 coast of the Mediterranean the salt marshes are some- 

 times found quite red. In 1830 Payen ascribed this 

 colouration to the presence of a small branchiopod crus- 

 tacean, Arieinia salina. Soon afterwards Dunal, of the 

 Faculty of Sciences at iVIontpellier, showed that the red 

 colour is due to a plant of the genus Protococcus, some- 

 times called Hcematococcus. A species of this genus gives 

 rise to the phenomenon of red snow, well known in arctic 

 and Alpine regions. In 1840, Joly, of the Faculty of 

 Sciences of Toulouse, in a memoir on the Arteniia, con- 

 firmed the observations of Dunal, and proved that Arteniia 

 is red only when it has been feeding on Protococcus. Thus 

 we may easily understand how a sudden gust of wind 

 may scatter the reddened water upon the ground and the 

 passers-by." 



Without at all casting a doubt upon this explanation, 

 we may admit that it is not the only possible solution of 

 the question. It is well known that many lepidopterous 

 insects — moths and butterflies — on emerging from the 

 chrysalis, eject a drop or two of a red, orange, or 

 reddish-brown liquid, which by a careless or a terrified 

 observer might easily be mistaken for slightly coagulated 

 blood. When these insects emerge simultaneously in 

 vast numbers, the red drops are proportionately 

 numerous. Any one who observed the vast swarm of 

 Pliisia gamma which crossed the Channel in August, 

 1878, and swarmed over the southern and midland coun- 

 ties, will readily believe that at the spot where these 

 moths emerged, the red drops must have been numerous 

 enough to pass for a shower. 



M. Gaston Tissandier, commenting in La Nature on the 

 Cochin-China incident, above-mentioned, states that in 

 1813 Professor Sementini communicated to the Academy 

 of Sciences at Naples the result of his observations on a 

 red rain which had fallen at Gerace (?) on March 14th of 

 the same year. He found that it contained a red ferru- 

 ginous powder of earthy origin, which had been swept 

 up from the soil by the wind'. In i860 Signer Campini 

 and Gabrielli examined a red rain which had fallen at 

 Sienna from December 28th to the 31st, and found in it 

 organisms analogous to those mentioned by M. Blan- 

 chard. 



We need scarcely add that blood has never been 

 recognised, optically or chemically, in any red rain. 



l2le^ielM0* 



Tenants of an Old Farm. Leaves from tlie Note-Book of 

 a Naturalist. By Henry McCook, D.D. With an 

 Introduction by Sir J. Lubbock, M.P., F.R.S., etc. 

 Illustrated from Nature. London : Hodder and 

 Stoughton. 



The merits of Dr. McCook as an accurate and persever- 

 ing observer of insects are well-known to all naturalists. 

 His " Natural History of the Agricultural Ants of Texas" 

 and his work on " The Honey and Occident Ants " have 

 won for him a high and wide reputation. Under these 

 circumstances the scientific public were gratified at learn- 

 ing that he had undertaken to furnish a number of essays 

 on insect life, giving prominence to his specialities — ants 

 and spiders. It was understood, as we find it intimated in 

 the preface, that these essays should express the latest 

 and best results of scientific research, and thus have a 

 real scientific value and standing, " whilst at the same 

 time — as could easily have been done — they were to be 

 adapted to the taste and understanding of lay readers. 



To our regret, this plan, under " the persuasion of 

 friends," has been modified. The matter has been 

 thrown into a colloquial form by the introduction of a 

 number of characters who, to us at least, seem by no 

 means interesting, and the valuable facts here to be found 

 have to be sought for amidst a quantity of gossip having 

 often but the slenderest connection with the subject. 



Thus we find in the table of contents a chapter said to 

 dwell on "A Battle, a Conquest, and a Night-Raid " We 

 turn to it in the expectation of finding some light thrown 

 upon the wars of ants. But behold, it is merely a 

 description of a fight between two dogs, in which the 

 "school-ma'am — Anglic^, schoolmistress — interposed 

 and tared as it often happens to peace-makers. Here, 

 then, we find six disappointing pages which would be 

 entirely beside the question had not cobwebs been used 

 to stanch the blood ! 



An interesting account of the harvest-ant of Texas is 

 heralded by an eleven-page description, illustrated, of 

 the " Blue Church," the services there and a feud between 

 two parties among the Quakers. 



But the genuine scientific matter in the book, if 

 obscured by these irrelevancies, will bear seeking out. 

 We learn, for the first time, that bumble-bees are 

 particularly attracted by objects of a black colour. Boys, 

 when destroying a bee's nest, a very reprehensible sport, 

 as Dr. McCook points out, use as one of their weapons a 

 black jug, half filled with water, into which the angry 

 bees plunge. It seems also that they will, if disturbed, 

 attack by preference any person dressed in black. This 

 fact, which deserves studying, is the more curious as for 

 many insects white objects seem exceptionally attractive. 

 At least, we have often found abroad, that a double crop 

 of insects may be gathered by laying down a white 

 cloth in a woodland clearing, one lot upon the cloth and 

 one underneath. 



We find a venerable instinctarian converted to a belief 

 in the rationality of the lower amimals by learning that 

 a turret-spider (Tarcntula arenicola) had lined her nest 

 with some cotton which had been used to prevent her 

 from escaping during conveyance to a vivarium. She at 

 first began to throw the cotton away, but discovered that 

 it was capable of being utilised, and acted accordingly. 

 This fact is one of Dr. McCook's many valuable observa- 

 tions. But the instinctarian in question does not see 



