272 



SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



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The Mild Wintek.— During a visit to Margate, 

 East Kent, last Christmas, I observed, on De- 

 cember 26th, both Helix cantiana and H. virgata 

 actively crawling about on dead grass stems in the 

 warm sunlight. — Thomas Edwards, Cliftonville House, 

 Leicester. 



Dr. William Harvey. — For the honour of my 

 old school, I must correct your statement that the 

 great Dr. William Harvey was educated at Folke- 

 stone. He was one of the sons of the King's 

 School, Canterbury.— (Rev.) J. W. Horsley, St. Peter's 

 Rectory, Walworth, S.E. 



Double Mushroom. — The figure on this page 

 represents a sketch of a 

 remarkable mushroom sent 

 to us by Mr. G. O. Silver- 

 lock, of 97, George Street, 

 Croydon, who found it 

 among others which had 

 been grown tor food. It 

 represents a " double " 

 specimen, each complete in 

 gills, the upper one inverted 

 on the tower. There is no 

 indication of a joint where 

 the pileus or cap of each 

 meets, and when received, 

 the two sets of hymenium 

 or gill surface were per- 

 fectly healthy, and each 

 set had deposited spores on 

 the white cotton-wool used 

 in packing. In place of a 

 stem, the upper part only 

 indicates where it had been, 

 by small atrophied remains, 

 as shown in the sketch. 

 The outer skin of the two 

 caps is perfect. When 

 fresh this curious specimen 

 was quite symmetrical, the 

 upper portion being smaller 

 than the lower. We have 



dried it, and though much less in size, it still shows 

 its abnormal characters very plainly. — John T. 

 Carrington. 



Yucca Flowering in Winter. — In a garden 

 with south aspect, a few doors from the chief post- 

 office at Southend-on-Sea, a plant of some species 

 of Yucca had, throughout this January, a large 

 truss of bloom and buds numbering upwards of a 

 hundred. This is a most unusual time for these 

 plants to flower in the open in Britain. — J. T. C. 



Ragged-Robin in Winter. — During the second 

 week in January this year, while travelling along 

 the coach road from Lynton to Barnstaple, in 

 North Devonshire, I observed Lychnis flos-cuculi 

 (ragged-robin) in flower. The bloom was bright 

 in colour, about the usual size, and apparently 

 from a seedling of one of last year's plants. — C. A. 

 Briggs, Rock House, Lynmouth. 



Natural History Societies and Technical 

 Institutes. — At the Congress of the South- 

 Eastern Union of Scientific Societies held last 

 May at Tunbridge Wells, attention was drawn by 

 Mr. S. At wood to the occasional difficulty of 

 securing rooms for meetings of scientific societies, 

 even when payment is offered and suitable rooms 

 belonging to Technical Instruction Committees are 

 actually unoccupied. This was considered to be 

 so unsatisfactory and opposed to the growth of 

 culture, that the Council of the Union was re- 

 quested to take whatever steps it might consider 

 necessary to remove such an obvious grievance. 

 As the result of a correspondence with the Secretary 

 of the Technical Education Committee of the Kent 

 County Council, I am pleased to state that in 

 future there will be no obstacle to the use of such 

 rooms in that county. The local committees of 

 Technical Institutes have now the liberty and 

 power to sublet their premises to the committees 

 of our local natural history societies. This, of 

 course, is nothing less than what we have a right to 

 expect, though hitherto such rooms have not been 

 available for the purpose. — George Abbott, M.R.C.S., 

 Hon. Sec. South-Eastern Union of Scientific Societies, 

 Tunbridge Wells. 



Double" Mushroom 



Newspaper Natural 

 History. — The following 

 makes an amusing addition 

 for those who collect 

 instances of newspaper 

 science. It is taken from 

 the " Cambridge News," of 

 January 10th, 1898. It 

 is needless to comment 

 further than to wonder 

 how such a communication 

 could be passed for press 

 in a modern newspaper in 

 these days of free educa- 

 tion. We should think 

 that members of the infant 

 classes in a Board School 

 could tell the writer of the 

 following letter that butter- 

 flies do not possess jaws 

 with which to feed upon 

 Brussels sprouts, to say 

 nothing of his statement 

 that a yellow butterfly 

 had changed its colour 

 to a pale green in con- 

 sequence of devouring that 

 succulent pabulum. Such 

 a remark is about equal to the ignorance of the fact 

 that a number of different kinds of British butter- 

 flies pass the winter as perfect insects. 



" Can any of your correspondents tell me if it is not a 

 record to have a live butterfly at this time of the year ? as I 

 have one that was yellow when I first caught it a week before 

 Christmas, but through feeding it on Brussels sprouts it has 

 got to a pale green. It is still alive in my possession 



- Prospect ~ 



I 

 Row. 



It is sti 



remain, yours truly, J. Marshall, 

 January 10th, 1898." 



Such an effusion is well worthy of the latter-day 

 newspaper " scientist." 



Honeycomb Weathering on Stone. — Would 

 some of your readers kindly assist me in elucidating 

 the cause of honeycomb weathering on surfaces of 

 buildings or sandstone rocks, either by the loan of 

 photographs, which I should be willing to pur- 

 chase if good ones, or by reference to papers ? — 

 Geo. Abbott, M.R.C.S. 



