SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



21 



Isle of Portland, and along the south coast. It is 

 with very great pleasure that lam able to announce 

 that my wife has been successful in finding several 

 nests containing females at Hastings, one with 

 mother and family of spiderlings, and the evidence 

 of the domestic tragedy, which almost invariably 

 takes place between the sexes of this powerful 

 spider. At the base of the aerial part of the tube 

 was found the " old clothes" of the murdered male 

 spider, whose body the female spicier had sucked 

 dry, and then carried up the tube and pushed 

 through the side. From some fifty specimens of 

 males and females kept in captivity, only one male 

 escaped the penalty of death. Mrs. Enock informs 

 me that the colony at Hastings is not a large one 

 and the nests require careful searching for. The 

 only point in the life-history of this wonderful 

 spicier which 1 have not yet settled, is the age of the 

 female, but I hope to establish a colony this spring 

 at the Zoological Gardens, where I am sure every 

 care will be exercised over them, and perhaps a 

 time fixed for "the spiders to be fed" — a most 

 interesting function. — Fred. Enock, n, Pavolks Road, 

 Upper Holloway, London. February, 1894. 



The Winter Season. — Plants in bloom in the 

 weald of Kent during Christmas week, 1893, were 

 snowdrops, winter aconite, hepatica (double pink), 

 coloured primrose, Pynts japonica, gentian (large 

 blue), sweet violet, Christmas rose, buttercup 

 (Ranunculus acris or repens), goat willow (male and 

 female), hazel and filbert (male and female). The 

 willow and hazel were in bloom by the first week of 

 December. Apparently, only part of the buds 

 developed early, but a very considerable number 

 were out of flower by December 25th. During the 

 week of January, 1st — 5th, the exposed thermometer 

 fell as low as 2 F. in the district, but the severe 

 cold did not seem to have injured any of the plants 

 afterwards observed, as they were protected by 

 snow. On the coast of Kent, with less snow and 

 more wind, plants have suffered worse, though the 

 thermometer readings were not lower than 16 F. 

 here. — Miss M. E. Pope, Ramsgatc ; Feb. 10th, 1S94. 



Abnormal Plantain. — I found a very remark- 

 able specimen of the Greater Plantain (Plantago 

 major), at Falmer, near Brighton. Instead of 

 the ordinary cylindrical spike, it had a much- 

 developed broad spike, about four times the width 

 of the normal one ; an offshoot of this broad spike, 

 about half its width, divided into two curved 

 branches, which again each divided into two. The 

 broad spike at its apex showed signs of division. 

 1 '>oth spikes were crowded with blossom. The 

 flower-stalk was from £ in. to ^ in. in width. Except 

 for these two spikes, the plant was perfectly normal. 

 — C. A. Winckvforth, Brighton. 





GEOLOGY 



qSI^ 



The Age of a Flint Implement. — At the January 

 meeting of the Norfolk and Norwich Naturalists' 

 Society, Mr. F. W. Harmer read a paper on a flint 

 implement recently found at Hellesdon. The 

 implement, of which two excellent photographs by 

 Mr. Bidwell were shown, was supposed to have 

 been taken from a bed of gravel at Hellesdon. If 

 this could have been proved it would have carried 

 back the antiquity of man in East Anglia to a 

 period vastly more remote than that which is 

 indicated by discoveries hitherto made. Mr. 

 Harmer explained the geological position of the 

 gravel at Hellesdon, underlying the middle and 

 upper glacial beds, and forming, in his opinion and 

 that of the late Mr. Searles V. Wood, the lowest 

 member of the glacial series, but considered by Mr. 

 Woodward to be a pre-glacial deposit. The evidence 

 which has been up to the present time obtained as to 

 the antiquity of man in Britain would carry it back 

 without any question into early post-glacial times. 

 The extreme improbability of the implement 

 having been found in such an early deposit as 

 this gravel, the lack of evidence in support of such 

 an hypothesis, and the supposed existence of the 

 remains in an adjoining field of a Neolithic 

 tumulus, inclined Mr. Harmer to suggest this 

 tumulus as its probable place of origin. This is an 

 example of the necessity for careful observation on 

 the origin of prehistoric remains. 



Rissoa chastelii, Nyst. — Morris, in his descrip- 

 tion of the plates of fossils appended to Forbes' 

 classical memoir on the "Tertiary Fluvio-marine 

 Formation of the Isle of Wight," says of this 

 species: "The specimen figured is stated to be 

 from Headon Hill, but this species is characteristic 

 of and abundant in some beds of the Hempstead 

 series, to which it had hitherto been considered as 

 confined. It occurs in the Limburg series of 

 Belgium, which are the equivalents of the Hemp- 

 stead beds of the Isle of Wight." On page 45 of 

 the Memoir, Professor Forbes speaks of the Black 

 Band at the base of the Hempstead series as con- 

 taining " the beginning of a new series of fossils, of 

 which the Rissoa chastelii is the first conspicuous 

 representative." In June of last year I obtained 

 from the Headon series of Headon Hill two speci- 

 mens of R. chastelii. I am unable to state the 

 precise stratigraphical horizon or topographical 

 point at which I met with them. — Rev. John Hawell, 

 Inglcby Grecnhoio Vicarage, February 6th, 1S94. 



