82 



SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



establishes this much, that the seed is not specially 

 the bird's object, but that the substance of the cone 

 itself, when young and green, is found by the rook 

 a good vegetable esculent. Probably as long as 

 small cones are plentiful the rook picks them by 

 preference, and swallows them whole, as Mr. Lett 

 describes ; when these are scarce, however, it 

 carries off the larger, of which it eats only the 

 outermost part, and if not particularly hungry it 

 buries them, perhaps with a view to promoting 

 decomposition, though on that point I refrain from 

 committing myself to a decided opinion. It is 

 curious to find how much notice this habit of the 

 rook has attracted in Ireland, and how little, 

 apparently, elsewhere. Can we have a species 

 of rook, Corvus conilagus, all to ourselves ? St. 

 Kilda had a wren, whose fate we deplore grievously ; 

 but the British ornithologist, if moderate in his 

 desires, will not be begrudged a few specimens of 

 the Irish rook for examination. — C. B. Moffat, 36, 

 Hardwick Street, Dublin ; July jth, 1896. 



Oyster Killing Mice. — A quaint mouse-trap, 

 and a very effective one, has lately been discovered 

 at the great fishing port of Grimsby. A resident of 

 that town placed a living oyster on his pantry floor, 

 and during the night it appears to have opened. 

 Evidently tempted by the smell of fish, three mice 

 placed their heads inside the open shell, whereupon 

 the oyster quietly and rapidly closed ; the result 



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being as shown in the accompanying illustration. 

 Oysters have been previously known to trap odd 

 mice in a similar fashion, but the capture of three 

 simultaneously is a fact which doubtless has never 

 been surpassed by an oyster. — William H. M arris, 

 118, Freeman Street, Grimsby. 



ScALARiFORME SHELLS. — In the mouth of June, 

 1895, I found a living scalariforme monstrosity of 

 Helix nemoralis on the Downs, east of Brighton in 

 Sussex. It is a single rather broad-banded (00300) 

 var. libellula. Although the spiral is well developed, 

 the specimen did not commence this peculiar 

 growth until about the completion of the second 

 whorl of the shell, the remaining four whorls 

 somewhat resembling the figure of a specimen in 

 the Liverpool Musuem on page 64 of volume i. of 

 Science-Gossip (1894). On the 4th of July, 1896, I 

 had the good fortune to find a scalariforme example 

 of Helix po?natia in North Kent. Unfortunately 

 it was not a living specimen and had been slightly 

 injured on the second whorl and at the lip ; still, 

 after being cleaned, it makes a very handsome and 

 interesting specimen. It is about one third larger 

 than the scalariforme, H. pomaiia, figured from the 

 Liverpool Museum on the same page above referred 

 to. The whorls in my specimen are much the 

 same as these drawn, excepting the last, which is 



stouter. As the shell is heavy and strong, the 

 animal apparently died from old age. These 

 monstrosities are evidently very rare in a state of 

 nature, for these are the only two I have met with 

 among the hundreds of thousands of banded Helix 

 shells examined by me during many years past. — 

 John T. Carrington. 



Abnormal Asparagus. — I am sending you a 

 sketch of a curious growth of asparagus found in 

 this garden. The stem is about three feet in length, 

 bent into the shape shown in the sketch. It is 

 one and three-quarter inches in breadth and barely 

 a quarter of an inch in thickness, but as hard 

 and stiff as a piece of board. I thought it might 

 interest some of the readers of Scienge-Gossip. — 

 C. M. Gibbings, Sunnyside, Hears Ashby, Northampton ; 

 July 10th, 1896. [The sketch indicates a fasciated 

 example, which has been permitted to grow to 

 maturity, giving it a very odd appearance. Fas- 

 ciation is frequent in cultivated asparagus. Ed.] 



Roosting of Helix pomatia.^ — During the re- 

 cent intensely hot weather, I was surprised to find 

 at Eynsford, Kent, some specimens of Helix pomatia 

 roosting on twigs in an old ragged hedge, where 

 they are not uncommon. The shells were very 

 conspicuously placed, sometimes as much as four 

 feet from the ground. Possibly they were tempted 

 into this position during one of the few showers of 

 rain which fell some weeks previously to my finding 

 them, and when the sun shone shortly afterwards, 

 they remained where they were. This high roost- 

 ing habit is common with H. hortensis and to a 

 lesser degree also with H. nemoralis; but I do not 

 remember having heard of it occurring among 

 H. pomatia. — John T. Carrington ; July i^th 1896. 



Tales of my Tusks. — Now that every loyal 

 Briton is talking about H.R.H. Princess Maud of 

 Wales and her marriage, it will interest some of 

 our readers to know that she has a "collection." 

 It consists, as might be supposed from the in- 

 dividuality of character of the princess, of anything 

 but a ladylike hobby. Tusks — elephantine, ursine, 

 porcine, rhinocerine and many others — have long 

 been collected by Princess Maud. Each has its 

 history, for they are chiefly trophies from the 

 quarry of the mighty hunters of her family, taken 

 in many distant lands. These stories, all true 

 ones, are entered, in Her Royal Highness's 

 characteristic handwriting, in several MS. books, 

 bearing the title " Tales of my Tusks." When 

 Princess Charles gets her Science-Gossip for this 

 month, she will see by page 75 that animals 

 other than lions, snakes, sharks and alligators are 

 bearers of tusks. 



Ferocity of Dragon-fly Larv^. — To 

 creatures larger than themselves the Libelluline 

 larvae must prove disagreeable antagonists. Hav- 

 ing occasion to lift by a pair of forceps an 

 L. i\-7naculata larva, it immediately arched the 

 nippers of the mask over its back until the top of the 

 head was completely hidden while attempting to 

 seize the steel in their powerful grasp, and actually 

 producing a slight snapping noise in its rage. 

 Endeavouring to test the sensation of contact with 

 these caudal points, one of my fingers, carefully 

 approached towards them, received a very 

 decided prick in the rebound of the creature's 

 tail to its normal position, much more so than 

 otherwise I should have believed possible. Larvas- 

 nymphs, dead or alive, of all groups, will always 

 be acceptable to me. — W. H. Nunney, 25, Tavistock 

 Place, Bloomsbury, W.C. 



