io8 



SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



cry from the mudflats causes us to raise our heads. 

 Yes, there is humour in our marshes. A man in a 

 punt has been stalking a number of curlews which 

 had been minding their own business by picking 

 up little green crabs, smaller cockles, and innocent 

 young shrimps. Their sentinel had seen the man 

 miles away, and gone on feeding. Hopefully the 

 man had drawn nearer, and still the birds had 

 stayed. After a time, when another twenty yards 

 would have brought the sportsman within range, 

 the watching bird had slowly and sedately warned 

 his brother waders, and the whole flock, uttering 

 their piercing and unearthly shriek, had leisurely 

 flown away. The curlews never trust to smell. 

 Hearing they disregard as being deceptive, but 

 seeing is strictly believing in their articles of faith. 

 They are the most marvellous judges of distances 

 in the bird world. I have known, where they 

 breed, a sportsman who has frequently surprised 

 the hen curlew with her young, when under cover 

 of thick rushes. The situation then grows 

 decidedly funny. The bird attempts to deceive 

 the man. She seeks to convey the idea into his 

 particularly dense brain, that she is a fine bird — ■ 

 very fine bird indeed ; would be good eating, and 

 a credit to his hunting. Also, that he has merely 

 to stretch out his hand to pick her up. She tells 

 him plainly that if he has one single grain of 

 sense, he must see that she is injured — badly so. 

 She cannot possibly fly, having hurt her wing, and 

 cannot run, having unfortunately fractured her 

 leg. In fact, he would do her a kindness if he 

 would pick her up and put her out of her misery. 

 If the man is like most men, he stoops to take her. 

 The bird flutters five yards away and falls panting, 

 so the man runs. She struggles a little further 

 and apparently prepares to die. The man almost 

 touches her, and she makes one more spasmodic 

 effort. Sure of victory, he gleefully snatches 

 at her, and she, uttering a loud laugh-like cry, 

 joyfully flies away. The man goes to look for the 

 young birds that he left in pursuit of maturer 

 charms, and finds that the place where he saw 

 them knows them no more. 



Far away, on a distant ooze-bed, the mother 

 curlew loudly tells the story to her admiring 

 friends, and their shrill and concerted laughter- 

 like cries, mingled with abominable insults and 

 scathing sarcasms, cause the disappointment to 

 enter more deeply into the man's soul. 



The peculiarly penetrating nature of the vowel 

 sound in the "curlew" cry causes it, like the 

 Australian " coo-ee," to be heard for great distances. 

 Curlews have been heard plainly when congregated 

 on a bank of sand left bare at half-tide at least two 

 and a-half miles from the observer ; yet, when near 

 at hand the call does not strike one as being 

 particularly loud or shrill. It is the prettiest bird, 

 to my mind, that we have in our marshes, and its 



delicate, melting eyes, and the glorious browns of 

 its wings defy description. 



We have more than herons and curlews on those 

 marshes ; plovers are here in plenty, and now and 

 then a stray godwit, also stint and occasionally 

 whimbrel. Redshanks and greenshanks are here 

 also ; and once, before I knew Johnston, I saw 

 two ruffs. Ruff and reeve, pretty and innocent 

 looking birds are these, but they belie their appear- 

 ance. Wait until the breeding season. They are 

 fiercely pugnacious, and polygamous as well ; con- 

 sequently the males will fight savagely for the 

 possession of a female that they will utterly 

 discard the next hour ; but there are no ruffs now 

 in our marshes. There they have been shot at till 

 others will come no more. 



18, Chilwell Street, Nottingham. 



PLANTS OF KILLARNEY. 



By John H. Barbour. 



T T was in this beautiful lake district that I spent 

 four days' holiday this year ; and now that I 

 have returned I feel I cannot too much extol its 

 charms. Here the geologist may be at home, or 

 the man fond of folk-lore, and here also the 

 botanist may ramble to his heart's content, amid 

 the most luxuriant growth of flowers and fruits 

 which nature ever produced in one district. 

 Therefore, I give a short word-picture of the 

 botany of Killarney. It is becoming for me to do so, 

 to allure others to this most charming resort. Those 

 who go there more especially interested in plant 

 life, will find, if they wish, besides the woods and 

 glens, in which is everything more nearly connected 

 with their own pursuit, the most exquisite harmony 

 of nature's majesty and power, blended with 

 verdure and sweetness. Most beautiful are the 

 Lakes of Killarney, though smaller than English 

 lakes, which I know well, or some Scotch lochs. 

 They are unequalled in that rich combination 

 which aids in forming a Utopian spot, where we 

 are loth to leave, and when we do, long to return 

 again. Being August, I only take notice of a very 

 few of the many plants I saw in flower that month. 

 Everywhere is the prolusion of plants so great 

 that it is well nigh impossible in four days to 

 select one spot on which nature seems to have 

 bestowed more care than another. Lord Ken- 

 mare's demesne and deer park, or Mr. Herbert's 

 estate, are veritable nests of plant wonders, from 

 fungi, through mosses which heavily clothe the 

 trees like thick mats, to the traveller's joy (Clematis 

 viialba), twining its flowering stems everywhere 

 and entangled with everything. The arbutus 

 (Arbutus unedo) bark is light reddish in colour, and 

 appears often twisted, as it were, round the trunk, 

 and chipped. With its dull evergreen leaves and 



