SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



159 



NOTES OF A HOME NATURALIST 



By Mrs. Emily J. Climenson. 



'TPHE writer of " Notes of a Home Naturalist " 

 ■*■ took her summer flight to Bournemouth on 

 July 23rd. Two precious water-beetles were en- 

 trusted to a kind friend, the best fish pensioned 

 out, and all the rest of the contents of the aquaria, 

 great and small, consigned to their native habitats. 

 The weather was so hot that for weeks the 

 slightest exertion was terrible, hence an enforced 

 absence of much energy in natural history pursuits. 

 Since the break up of the extreme heat, the 

 constant rain, alternating with high wind, has 

 made rock-searching (for which one has to go to 

 Swanage) and butterfly catching almost impossible. 

 In a little pond on the West Common here, the 

 product of heath drainage, are an enormous 

 amount of Dytiscics and Acilhis sttlcatusheetles, some 

 large and savage "boatmen" or Notonecta glaiica, 

 and some of the largest Corixa I have ever seen, 

 as big as an ordinary Thames Notonecta, the 

 scutelum marked with a strongly-defined diagonal 

 cross. Being tired of keeping Dytiscus beetles, I 

 have devoted myself to the Acilius sulcatus, and 

 have four alive and merry, living in a glass jam- 

 jar, fed upon little pieces of raw meat. 



At Swanage, on August 15th, I found some nice 

 specimens of anemones, viz., brown, red and 

 spotted Actinia viesambryanthemiim or "beadlets," 

 and Antliea cereus or " opelet," also one -bright 

 green anemone with an exquisite blue rim at the 

 base. On August 19th, when brushing off the 

 skin-like exudation that anemones exude, with a 

 camel's-hair brush (which they like as any fine 

 lady may the manipulation of her abigail), I found 

 four baby anemones, each the size of a pin's head, 

 who had taken to an empty limpet shell as a 

 cradle. A few days after, in changing the water 

 in another finger-glass with anemones therein con- 

 tained, one of them emitted three baby anemones. 

 The shore being some little way off, I fetched the 

 sea-water in a tin narrow-mouthed jug, which 

 does not slop as a can would. The stored water 

 turned very rusty, and on pouring the water 

 incautiously into the glasses, a quantity of rust fell 

 in. The anemones have lived through it, but 

 diminished to a quarter their size, I suppose in 

 consequence of the rust. The water being re- 

 newed after a few days, they are now rapidly 

 recovering size and beauty. 



On August 24th, in Little Durley Chine, I 

 found some magnificent specimens of Carduus 

 marianus, their lovely glaucous leaves, some over a 

 foot long, veined and splotched with white. This 

 thistle is a rare one, and the legend runs that the 

 Virgin Mary, in nursing the infant Saviour, dropped 



some of her milk on this plant, which has for ever 

 retained the mark. Even when dried and pressed, 

 though turned brown, the leaf has the white 

 splotches and veins distinctly showing. 



The same day some blue gentians were found 

 near the same place. They used to be fairly 

 common here, but like their neighbours, the 

 " cotton grass " {Eriophorum) and " bog asphodel " 

 {Nartliecium ossifragum), they seem to perish as 

 the breath of mankind increases in their native 

 habitat. Advanced population is synonymous with 

 depreciation of flora, alas, when it approaches the 

 haunts of what may be termed Flora's timid 

 votaries. Never have berries been more abundant 

 in this neighbourhood than this year, or earlier, 

 blackberries being ripe and exposed for sale quite 

 a month ago. In paying a visit to General Pitt 

 River's most interesting place, Rushmore, the 

 other day, we found plants of hoary mullein 

 (Verbasciun pulveruUntum). This was in Wiltshire. 

 I see in Bentham's " British Flora " it is only con- 

 sidered to grow in Norfolk, Sufiolk, Surrey and 

 Hants, though certainly Rushmore is not far from 

 the Hants border. To all who love the acclimitiza- 

 tion of beasts and birds in this country, a visit 

 should be made to Rushmore. The list of animals 

 and birds there to be seen would take too much 

 room here. On the other hand, those who love 

 studying birds should on no account be near 

 Christchurch, Hants, without visiting Mr. Hart's 

 museum of stuffed birds. Not only is he an 

 enthusiastic naturalist, but he is a perfect artist in 

 setting up those birds he obtains, generally in the 

 most natural postures, and he groups them and 

 surrounds them with the objects or plants they 

 affect in a way that is most remarkable. With each 

 bird (and many rare examples are to be seen 

 there) is a little life-history he can tell that en- 

 trances any bird lover. Having known his collec- 

 tion before he made a museum for them, some 

 twenty years or more, I can well vouch for its 

 interest and its increasing development. 



In the latter part of .Vugust, several men and 

 boys appeared in Bournemouth with trollies 

 covered with land tortoises. One man, who I 

 remembered some years ago at Bournemouth, 

 showed me an egg of the size of a blackbird's, very 

 round, covered with white skin, which he affirmed 

 to have been laid by a tortoise fished by him out of 

 a pond which I remembered, now filled in, and 

 declared it had been laid by the tortoise a few days 

 after catching it. Is there any truth in the notion 

 that these reptiles destroy black-beetles ? 

 " Glcnsoil," Boimiemouth. Septcmlcr lyth, 1S96. 



