SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



215 



There must have been millions of specimens. The 

 same thing was remarked at St. Owen's Bay, in 

 Jersey, though in that case the shells were not in 

 quite such vast numbers. Some good forms were 

 collected from both localities. Helix aspera and 

 H. nemoralis are common in both Jersey and 

 Guernsey, but H. hortensis, though undoubtedly 

 occurring, was not noticed. 



A boat leaves St. Peter-Port two or three times 

 a week for Herm. This island is well worth a 

 visit, from a naturalist's point of view, from the 

 fact that there, at the north end of the island, may 

 be seen a most curious phenomenon, the "shell 

 beach." This beach extends perhaps one hundred 

 yards or more along the sea front, and is composed 

 of innumerable quantities of dead shells, both 

 broken and perfect, mixed with fine shingle. It is 

 as though the whole of the molluscs, from near 

 all the islands congregate off this strip of beach 

 when they feel their end approaching, just as 

 the guanacos of South America are known to 

 have special "dying-places." This shell beach 



becomes even more curious and interesting when 

 one learns by experience how very few dead shells 

 are to be found on the shores of the other islands. 

 One of the most numerous species on this beach — 

 and from its shape the most perfect — is Cyprcea 

 europaa. With a little careful searching a good 

 series of this shell, fit for any cabinet, may be 

 obtained. Other genera are represented in large 

 numbers, suchasi?;5sofl, Phassianella, Erata, Trochus, 

 Emargimda, Fissurella, Dentalium, Patella, Littorina, 

 Mangelia, Nassa, and very many others which 

 space forbids me to enumerate. 



Sark is well worth a visit for the sake of its 

 beauty, if for no other reason. Here one late 

 Eiichelia jacobce was taken, and hundreds of the 

 larvae of that species were noticed, in all stages, 

 feeding on the ragwort. One or two Lycana 

 agestis turned up, and L. alexis, while the three 

 "browns" before mentioned were flying all 

 over the place. Here was a good clover-field, 

 which we watched carefully for Colias edusa and 

 C. hyale. 



BRITISH FRUITS. 



By David S. Fish. 



TV /TOST persons who have been so fortunate as to 

 ■^ visit the East or the South, with their 

 wonders in vegetable and animal life, have nearly 

 always remarked on the number and variety of the 

 tropical and sub-tropical fruits. They say, and 

 truly, that Britain has very few native fruits, 

 compared with those favoured regions. As a 

 matter of fact we have very few fruits which, as 

 found in our woods and hedges, are worth eating. 

 Some believe we have none which are native, and 

 that the Romans introduced all our best wild 

 fruits. "Whether they did or did not, our shrubs 

 which bear fruit may now, in most cases, be 

 accounted native. 



We have about five native fruits which are 

 popular to country dwellers. They are the wild 

 forms of raspberry, gooseberry, strawberry, black- 

 berry and dewberry, which are fairly good before 

 cultivation. The best is the blackberry {Rubus 

 fruiticosus), of which we have about forty sub- 

 species, which offer a wide range of sorts to 

 hybridise or cultivate. 



The renowned " American " varieties are nearly 

 all from selected plants found growing wild, and 

 we might easily improve our own stock. The 

 fruits I have mentioned and a few more found 

 on mountains, such as the cloudberry (Rubus 

 chamceinorus), are all that nature has given for our 

 use in a fairly good state of perfection, but they 

 require the help of man to attain their highest 

 quality. Our gardens would indeed have been 



very poor in fruits were it not for the apple, pear, 

 plum, raspberry, red and black currants, and 

 cherry, which we owe respectively to the original 

 Pyrus mains, Pyrus communis, Primus domestica, Ribes 

 rubrum and R. nigrum, and Cerasus sylvestris or 

 Cerasus vulgaris. 



The economy of nature is well shown in the 

 degrees of perfection in which we find the fruits of 

 various climes. In tropical lands where the heat 

 is so intense that little work or culture of the land 

 may be carried on, and where animal food must be 

 eaten very sparingly, other food is found already 

 provided in the shape of rice, bananas, plantains, 

 and the many other fruits and vegetables with 

 which those lands teem. As we go further north 

 the fruits are not so perfect in their wild forms, but 

 as the climate is cooler and more bracing, man is 

 enabled to cultivate them so as to reach their 

 maximum quality : first by growing for some 

 generations in a soil rich in substances which are 

 specially favourable to free growth and gradual im- 

 provement of the species ; secondly by hybridising, 

 with the object of combining the good and leaving 

 out the bad or faulty qualities of both parents ; 

 thus we attain the greatest possible amount of 

 flavour, prolificness, and size of fruit ; and thirdly 

 by sports which are freaks from the ordinary form, 

 usually caused by special circumstances or elements 

 contained in the soil. 



Some fruits change as the plants grow older, as 

 in the case of the barberry {Bcrbcris vulgaris), the 



