SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



of Volcanoes," " British Birds' Nests," etc. There 

 were also a number of excursions, and meetings 

 were held at Wellington, as well as at Shrewsbury, 

 in which latter town is the Club Room at 37, Castle 

 Street, Mr. J. A. Panter being the Hon. Secretary. 



Metric Equivalents of Imperial Weights and Measures 

 ana 'Thermometric Equivalents. 12pp.large4.to. (Lon- 

 don: Pharmaceutical Journal Office, 1898.) is. 6d. 



This is an important and most useful compilation 

 for comparison of the value of weights or measures 

 expressed either by metric or imperial standards, 

 and the equivalents in degrees of temperature of 

 centigrade (Celsius), Fahrenheit and Reanmur. The 

 cause of the issue of these tables by the Pharmaceu- 

 tical Society is that the metric system of weights and 

 measures is now legalised in the United Kingdom 

 for the purposes of trade. The book will be found 

 of great value to persons requiring to find the 

 quantities expressed in either system, when judged 

 by the other. The Society will do much to 

 familiarise people with the use of the metric 

 system by publishing the tables before us. 



Garden Making. By L. H. Bailey. 425 pp. 8vo, 

 256 illustrations. (New York and London : 

 Macmillan and Co., 1898.) 4s. net. 



Although this useful work was written in America 

 for Americans, it will be found very suggestive to 

 persons on this side of the Atlantic. Gardening 

 for luxury's sake, as practised in Europe, is only in 

 its infancy on the western continent. We do not 

 mean that in the neighbourhoods of large cities of 

 the eastern states there have not been fine gardens 

 for years past, but that generally, all over both the 

 States and Canada, the art of beautifying the home 

 plot has only latterly received attention. For such 

 cases is this book written, and it will go far to make 

 the home lovely in many a place where such things as 

 flowers have too frequently had but scant thought. 



County Down : Belfast and County Down Railway 

 Company's Official Guide to County Down and the 

 Mourne Mountains. By Robert Lloyd Praeger, 

 B.A., M.R.I. A. 337 pp. 8vo, with 70 views of 

 scenery, maps, and other illustrations. (Belfast : 

 Marcus Ward and Co., Limited, 1898.) is. 



It has seldom been our pleasure to take up a 

 more satisfactory official guide to any place. It is 

 quite unconventional, well arranged, and a com- 

 panion to the educated tourist. Every taste is 

 catered for in these pages, and those which will 

 appeal to the readers of this magazine are most 

 satisfactory. The author of this guide is such a 

 well-known naturalist that it 4s a relief to be able 

 to read his remarks on scientific subjects, knowing 

 they will be correct. This department of the 

 book will do much to attract English readers to 

 visit the beautiful country served by the railway 

 company which has had the enterprise to publish 

 so unique a little work. Although natural history 

 is treated at length in the first section of the book, 

 it is not all packed in one chapter, but is pleasantly 

 interwoven with the descriptions of places, or dealt 

 with in special paragraphs. There is not any slip- 

 shod literary work in this book, as will be seen by 

 examining the tables of reference to other works at 

 the end of the various places described. Their 

 correctness is remarkable, and an unusual feature 

 in guide books. The pages show evidence of 

 personal visits by the author to the localities men- 

 tioned. The railway company has done wisely to 

 place the work in such competent hands. The 

 illustrations are excellent, being chiefly from views 

 taken by that celebrated landscape photographer, 

 Mr. Robert Welch, of Belfast. 



Nomenclature of Shells. — Mr. Alfred Bell 

 [ante vol. iv. p. 353) will find the best authority 

 for the generic and sub-generic nomenclature of 

 the Helicidae in "Tryon's Manual of Conchology," 

 now edited by H. A. Pilsbry. The latter eminent 

 malacologist has produced by far the best and 

 most satisfactory classification of this most difficult 

 group, and we followed him. Mr. Bell will find 

 all his queries answered in that work, which was 

 not in existence when Mrs. Hughes wrote her 

 paper. A further change will, we fear, have to be 

 made in future under the laws of priority, and 

 Cyclostoma elegans will finally figure as Pumatias 

 reflexus, Linn. O the pity of it! — A. Santer Ken- 

 nard and B. B. W oodward, London. 



Five-banded Shells Wanted. — Our corres- 

 pondent, Mr. Arthur E. Boycott, writes: "Would 

 you ask your readers in Science-Gossip if any of 

 them will send me some ' takes ' of Tachea similar 

 to the Irish one you mention in the last number in 

 such an interesting way. The more specimens, of 

 course, the better, and it is extremely desirable that 

 they should be collected on the principle of taking 

 every adult specimen found. They need not, of 

 course, be cleaned out, and fragments are very 

 nearly as good as whole specimens." Mr. Boycott's 

 address is The Grange, Hereford. I feel sure many 

 of our readers will be glad to assist in the elucida- 

 tion of the complicated band and general variation 

 question of T. nemoralis and T. hortensis. I shall 

 myself always be pleased to correspond with those 

 interested in the subject and to receive specimens 

 for examination. In sending " takes " to either 

 Mr. Boycott or me, it is particularly necessary to 

 keep those from each locality separate, and mention 

 its name, with some description of the surrounding 

 soil, etc. — John T. Carrington, i, Northumberland 

 Avenue, London, W.C. 



A Hardy Plant. — At the beginning of January 

 I bought for a shilling a small plant of Ardisia 

 crenulata in a pot. I placed it in the centre of my 

 dining table, and there it has been, with scarcely a 

 change, ever since, and still it is as bright and 

 fresh as ever. A plant that will stand four months 

 of life in the middle of a room, with a daily fire 

 and gas burning every night, is something of a 

 treasure. Ardisia is a pretty plant too. My little 

 specimen is only nine inches high, but it has a 

 pretty crown of bright green glossy leaves and 

 three bunches of showy scarlet berries below. It 

 is a native of China and belongs to the order 

 Myrsineae, which includes the trees and shrubs that 

 would otherwise be ranged with the herbaceous 

 order Primulaceae. — F. T. Mott, Crescent House, 

 Leicester. 



Camtogamma fluviata. — It has often struck 

 me as peculiar that this pretty moth should now 

 be so scarce. It was always considered a "good 

 thing" among the Geometers, and used to be 

 recorded on capture, about the later middle 

 portion of the century. As often as anywhere in 

 those days it was taken at the light of south- 

 western suburban London gas-lamps. There were 



