SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



8i 



Sir Joseph Prestwich, D.C.L., F.R.S., whose 

 death we briefly recorded in our last number, was 

 born in 1812, at Clapham, in Surrey. His early 

 education was conducted in London, Paris, and 

 at Dr. Valpy's Grammar School at Reading, 

 whence he passed to University College, London. 

 In consequence of some lectures by Prof. Turner, 

 his attention was drawn to the study of geology, 

 to which he devoted much of his leisure after 

 entering upon the occupation of a wine-merchant 

 in the City of London. In that business he was 

 successfully engaged until reaching his sixtieth 

 year. Whilst travelling for the firm in his earlier 

 days, he had many opportunities of observing the 

 geology of Britain and for gathering fossils. 

 When twenty-four years old, Dr. Prestwich wrote 

 for the Geological Society of London an admir- 

 able paper upon the geology of the Coalbrook Dale 

 region of Shropshire, which brought his name 

 favourably before the scientific public of the 

 period. This was followed by a study, on the 

 suggestion of Sir Roderick Murchison, of the 

 Ichthj'olites of Banffshire. Flis geological interests, 

 however, soon centred about London in an exam- 

 ination of the Eocene formations of the London 

 Basin, I'his led to his defining and naming the 

 Woolwich and Reading Beds, as well as the 

 Thanet Sands. In this investigation he gave 

 much attention to the organic remains in the 

 London clay. He spent on this particular study 

 most of his leisure for quite twenty years. One 

 subject in connection with which Sir Joseph wall 

 long be remembered was the successful examination 

 in valley gravels for evidence of early man, by 

 which he was largely instrumental in showing that 

 man and the mammoth were co-existant with 

 various other Pleistocene animals. This led to 

 endless discussion on the antiquity of man, which, 

 in some minds still remains a very unsettled specu- 

 lation. In 1853, Sir Joseph was elected a Fellow 

 of the Royal Society, of which he became a Vice- 

 President in 1870, when he was also appointed 

 President of the Geological Society. Having 

 retired from the wine trade in 1872, he was offered 

 the chair of Geology at Oxford two years later, on 

 the death of Professor Phillips, from which 

 professorship Prestwich retired in 1888. As a 

 writer on geological subjects he was as well- 

 known as voluminous. Sir Joseph Prestwich was 

 selected by Her Majesty's advisers for honour as 

 a representative of science early in this year, 

 though his delicate state of health forbade his 

 acceptance of knighthood in person from the 

 Queen. We understand, however, that he had 

 long been Sir Joseph in his own right, through 

 the inheritance of a baronetcy, though he never 

 took steps to assume the title. The funeral took 

 place at Shoreham churchyard, in North Kent, 

 near his late residence, many persons of conse- 

 quence in the geological world of science attending. 

 The service was conducted by the Rev. Professor 

 Bonney, F.R.S., assisted by the Rev. R. A. Bullen, 

 the Vicar, who is also interested in natural science. 



PlUSIA MONETA at LeATHEKHEAD, SfKREY. — 



During the autumn and spring of 1S94-5 I stocked 

 our garden with a good number of plants of monks- 

 hood, in the hope of attracting this rare moth, 

 choosing three of the usual garden varieties of the 

 plant. The season of 1895 did not produce any, 

 but in the present year a successful result has 

 occurred, for we took one specimen on the 7th, two 

 on the 8th and one on the 9th of July, on which 

 evening another was lost. All were taken hovering 

 at dusii over the flowers of the monkshood ; in 

 each case the variety of flowers being the ordinary 

 white one with blue edges. I should be glad to 

 know if any of your readers have observed Pliisia 

 mofuta over any other variety of the plant. — 

 C. A. Briggs, 55, Lincoln's Inn Fields; July i6th, 1896. 



Rooks swallowing Fir-Cones. — While much 

 interested in the Rev. H. W. Lett's observations 

 {ante p. 52) of the rooks swallowing Scotch fir-cones 

 whole, I can vouch for it that they by no means 

 limit their attention to the smaller cones, for it is a 

 common sight in some parts of Ireland to see 

 rooks carrying full-sized pine-cones into the fields, 

 and much curiosity has been expressed as to what 

 they do with them. Thompson, in his " Natural 

 History of Ireland," has the following remarks on 

 the subject : " What rooks do with the cones of the 

 Scotch fir, subsequent to carrying them off, has not 

 been ascertained. It would seem to me that unless 

 the scales be so widely open that the seed is ready 

 to drop out they can hardly reach it, and even then 

 a portion only would be accessible. The scales 

 themselves could only, I conceive, be detached 

 when partially decomposed." Thompson's atten- 

 tion had been drawn to the subject apparently by 

 his correspondent, Mr. Joseph Poole, of Wexford, 

 who had observed the rooks at work " carrying ofif 

 cones of Scotch fir and dissecting them on the 

 ground." I had myself very frequently seen rooks 

 in the act of carrying cones into the field and 

 mangling them with their bills. On picking up 

 these cones, of which I have examined a large 

 number, chiefly in September and October, I have 

 noticed (i) that the cones, though not small, were 

 invariably green, and their scales, of course, still 

 rigidly compact, and (2) that much of the green 

 surface had been hacked away by the rook, but 

 that this had been done in an awkward fashion, so 

 that although it seemed difficult to doubt without 

 further evidence that the seed was the real object 

 of search, it was quite clear that in a great number 

 of instances the seed had not been reached. I 

 mentioned this peculiarity in the "Irish Naturalist" 

 for October, 1894, page 210, and soon afterwards a 

 very observant gentleman told me that his experi- 

 ence only partly agreed with mine, inasmuch as 

 the rooks which he had watched carrying cones 

 into the fields made no attempt to eat, but buried 

 them. From all these circumstances it is clear 

 enough that the rooks' conduct towards the cones 

 of Pinus sylvcstris varies not a little according to the 

 occasion; but I think Mr. Letts recent observation 



