SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



35 



NOTES OF A HOME-NATURALIST. 



l>y Mrs. Emily J. Climenson. 



HP HE cold weather has caused a great mortality 

 amongst the birds here at Shiplake, despite 

 of all who could afford it throwing food to them, as 

 they eagerly crowded towards the houses. During 

 the intense cold, I used to walk every day round a 

 bank which lies at the bottom of our terraced 

 garden, looking south, and which, having a fringe 

 of shrubs and brushwood, afforded a greater degree 

 of shelter than other places. Daily I found birds 

 dead or dying ! They consisted of thrushes, black- 

 birds, wood-pigeons, starlings, and once I found a 

 dead fieldfare. I brought several blackbirds and 

 thrushes into the house, and placed them in cages, 

 but, after a temporary recovery — and, in one case, a 

 thrush lived three days— they all died. They 

 were either too far gone, or else, as in latter case, I 

 believe ate too much after inanition, and died from 

 repletion. Prolonged thirst may be the cause of 

 many deaths, as suggested by Miss F. Winstone, 

 last month (ante, page 20). I noticed several times 

 a little jenny wren entering a burrow in the bank. 

 A friend, who had a bone tied up for the tits to peck 

 at, noticed a nut-hatch which came daily to peck 

 too. Our schoolmaster fed the birds, and two 

 rooks took to coming in a shy, wary way to feed as 

 well, and though the frost has ceased, these birds 

 still come, and I saw the pair settle, one after 

 another, in a tiny apple-tree in his garden, the other 

 day, waiting for food. I heard of a little auk being 

 caught near Sonning, and another near Reading, 

 also a snowy owl (Strix nyctea) being shot near 

 Reading. On Saturday, March gth, our man- 

 servant saw a white wild duck, which had been 

 caught at Sonning, in a bird-stuffer's shop at 

 Reading. My daughters saw a very large flock of 

 wild ducks on the flooding, soon after the thaw- 

 set in, accompanied by two larger birds, that 

 they considered to be geese, from their general 

 appearance. 



Theglass jam-bottle I described in the March num- 

 ber of Science-Gossip (ante, page 4) is becoming 

 almost overcrowded with weed. One brown seed 

 has germinated, and produced one leaf on a stalk, 

 and another leaf can now be sesn through a sort of 

 filmy transparent hammock. I have removed the 

 se2:l, to watch the development, to another glass, 

 and think the plant will prove to be frogbit (Hydro- 

 ch.irsis morsus-rana) . The odd-looking nematode 

 (if such it be), like barley-sugar, has grown much, 

 and now looks like a miniature tabby cat's tail, 

 with regular bars round it. The head, when looked 

 at through a magnifying glass, seems like a round, 

 transparent hood, with two black segments, each 

 divided into two divisions, like double ears, set up 

 in it. The creature evidently has a large sucker at 

 its tail by which it clings to the weed Anarcharis in 



preference to other. It either coils round the edge 

 of leaf, when it looks like a portion of a discoloured 

 leaf, or else it clings by sucker to leaf, and moves 

 backwards and forwards, apparently trying to catch 

 the daphnia and cyclops which dash past it. I saw 

 it make a dart at a large daphnia the other day, 

 which quickly beat a retreat ; and as there are 

 fewer water-fleas in the bottle, I conclude it must 

 eat some. I should like to know its name, as it is 

 different from any nematode I ever saw, though on 

 the few occasions that I have seen it adhere to the 

 glass it progresses with that curious doubling up 

 and then stretching again, like ordinary nematodes. 

 There are several young white leeches born since I 

 wrote ; all the rest of the family are well, except 

 Limnophilus rhombicus, who, for some unexplained 

 reason, divested himself of his cadis dress, and, 

 though supplied with barley-stalks, etc., refused to 

 re-clothe himself, and died. All my family are 

 self-supporting ; neither fresh water nor food have 

 been supplied since they were caught in the second 

 week of December last. 



Plant life is very backward here, but Arum 

 macuhitum, or " lords and ladies," is at last showing, 

 and I found to-day (March 10th) some plants of 

 wild garlic, some inches tall. Snowdrops and 

 aconites are in flower, but very stunted with frost. 

 My servant found a fine specimen of fossil sea- 

 urchin, belonging to cretaceous period, in a gravel- 

 pit we have been digging lately here. We are on a 

 mixture of drift gravel with chalk, a strip of London 

 clay running through the parish in one narrow 

 segment. 



Shiplake Vicarage, Oxon ; March, 1895. 



THE GINGER-BEER PLANT. 



YOUR correspondent, Mr. Fielding, will find 

 ■*■ this growth (Science-Gossip, vol. i., N.S., 

 page 284, and vol. ii. ante, page 26) forms the subject 

 of an illustrated paper by Mr. G. E. Davis, in the 

 Annual Report of the Manchester Microscopical 

 Society for 1883-4, in which the author says : 

 " To sum up, the ginger-beer plant is a very 

 impure yeast or leaven of a different character to 

 ordinary brewer's yeast or German barm. It 

 consists of many varieties of cells, oval, round, 

 and some extremely elongated ; the whole are 

 bound together by myceloid filaments, which 

 increase as the air has free access to it. The 

 smaller or bacteroid cells I have not had sufficient 

 time to work out, but my impression is that they 

 induce the peculiar flavour found in the liquid. 

 Certain it is that by cultivation these can be 

 considerably reduced in quantity, and the flavour 

 then alters very materially." G. H. Bryan. 



Thomlea, Cambridge; March ii.'/i. 1895. 



