104 



SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



NOTES OF A HOME NATURALIST. 

 By Mrs. Emily J. Climenson. 



S~\N the ist of June I betook myself, with my 

 ^ family, to my old haunt, Bournemouth. 

 Though civilization is more or less eliminating the 

 rarer wild flowers from this place, yet still, in 

 Little Durley Chine, near where I am living, a 

 careful observer may find many plants more or 

 less uncommon. Owing, doubtless, to its position 

 on a very steep declivity, therefore more or less 

 inaccessible to ordinary folk, stand great groups 

 of the milk-thistle, Carduus marianum. Its glaucous, 

 milk-veined leaves, with their fearfully sharp 

 prickles, are not easily gathered. It has been in 

 flower for some three weeks, but the blooms are 

 dying off now. It is a remarkably striking plant, 

 and attains a height of at least four feet there. 

 The blue gentian is still to be found, though not 

 yet in bloom ; the cotton-sedge, bog asphodel and 

 sun-dew, though yearly diminishing, are there ; 

 also evening primrose, which is, of course, an 

 escape. In the bog ponds, early in June, amongst 

 other creatures, I captured some larvae of Corethm 

 in which the air-sacs, generally black in those I 

 find at Shiplake, were fully marked, but perfectly 

 transparent. A Corixa, new to me, had an exceed- 

 ingly rounded scutellum, marked with curious 

 slanting lines all round it, the eyes bright red, the 

 neck set on with a line resembling quicksilver. 



On June nth, at Swanage, I picked Iris foeti- 

 dissima, Orchis pyramidalis, and saw the yellow-horned 

 poppy in flower at the end of the bay under 

 Bal!ard-down. The most gigantic horsetails, or 

 Equisetum telmateia, grow in some of the small 

 chines, or gullies, running down to the shore, 

 presenting quite a tropical effect, with their strange 

 foliage and rigid black-marked stems. 



On the evening of July ist, a member of the family 

 rushed in about seven o'clock to say there was a 

 swarm of hornets outside my window. Cautiously 

 we peeped out ; I saw thousands of creatures 

 dancing around the window. Taking a butterfly- 

 net, I made a swoop, and caught not hornets but 

 cockchafers (M elolanthus) . Being no longer afraid, 

 we watched their gyrations calmly. Where they 

 had all come from it was impossible to say ; but it 

 was a perfect eruption of exceedingly clean, bright 

 young insects, who were pairing as fast as they 

 could. I kept one pair for a day or two. For two 

 nights after there were still a good many about, 

 but not the swarms of the first night. 



On July 2nd, I went a delightful excursion, by 

 sea, to Lulworth Cove, but confined my energies to 

 botanizing and sea-anemone hunting on the east 

 side of the exquisite little bay. High up on the 

 cliffs bloomed masses of the yellow-horned poppy, 



wild fennel, samphire, great blue spikes of Echium 

 vulgare, or viper's buglos, beds of pink rest 

 harrow ; below on the shore grew bushes ot 

 "tea" plant, escaped from some garden. At the 

 eastern end of the bay lies the remains of a fossil 

 forest, from which I procured specimens of fossil 

 wood, and one specially interesting section of 

 fossil palm-stalk. Amongst the seaweed-covered 

 rocks were plenty of beadlet anemones, crimson and 

 brown, together with one marked like a strawberry — 

 red with yellow spots — and a peculiarly beautiful 

 emerald-green anemone ; all of which I brought 

 home, and which are flourishing in shallow vessels. 

 On July 14th, a long, happy day was spent at 

 Studland, an exquisitely situated little village 

 placed in a bay that adjoins the entrance to Poole 

 Harbour. Studland is about as good a place as 

 an all-round naturalist could wish to stay in : 

 scenery lovely ; butterflies plentiful, as are also 

 shells ; a most varied flora, and at low tide a 

 good assortment of sea creatures. Of specially 

 interesting flowers, I picked, on the downs 

 stretching towards Poole Harbour, Inula conyza, 

 or ploughman's spikenard ; Erythraea centaurium ; 

 Scdum dasypliyllum ; and, bordering a little stream, in 

 thick tufts were the exquisite pink and white 

 flowers of the Anagallis tenella, or bog pimpernel. 

 Amongst the rocks I obtained anemones, mussels, 

 cockles, etc., and on turning back the seaweed in a 

 pool, tried to catch by the tail a black snake-like 

 looking fish, some ten inches long, but it snapped 

 round so sharply that my courage failed and I 

 ignominiously let it go. In another pool I caught 

 a fish with the aid of a knife and a bunch of 

 seaweed ; it died on the way home. It was found 

 to measure some six inches ; was of a browny-green 

 colour, with nine spots on each side, at intervals, 

 opposite each other ; the spots were black, outlined 

 with white ; the tail ended in a circular fin, 

 yellow, rayed with red ; eyes were large and 

 very close together. The only fish it at all 

 resembled is the spotted gunnell, in " Marine 

 Aquaria," by Mr. Bingham; but that in the 

 picture seems spotted all over and has a back fin ; 

 this fish had no back fin, only one small one about 

 half-way along the lower part of its body towards 

 the tail. The sailors on board the "Empress" 

 could not tell me what it was. The spots along 

 the back gave it a very singular appearance. 

 Oldfidd, Bournemouth ; July 18th, 1897. 



The Ratcliffe Observer. — It is said that Dr. 

 A. A. Rambant, the Astronomer Royal for Ireland, 

 has been nominated to the vacant observership. 



