I'eb. 1, 1865.] 



SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



47 



Sphagivum kubelltjm. — Can any one send us 

 specimens in exchange for otlier mosses wliicli the 

 querist (Z.) may possess in duplicate ? 



_ Colour of Bird's Eggs. — Will our ornitholo- 

 gical correspondents please to observe, during the 

 coming season, the colours and markings of birds' 

 eggs, so as to determine \yhcther the earliest or Icdest 

 produced by the same bird are deepest in colour, or 

 most definitely marked ? 



Cleais^ing SECTioifs. — A correspondent (K.) has 

 succeeded in rubbing down some thin sections of 

 the spine of an Echinm, for the microscope, but 

 finds himself unable to cleanse them to his satisfac- 

 tion from the debris of grinding. Can any of our 

 subscribers assist him with practical advice ? 



Eiio:m what plants are the leaves, in which oranges 

 are sent to our markets, obtained ; also the leaves 

 lining tea-chests ; and from what tree might the pegs 

 which bind the leaves together be derived ? There is 

 also a kind of wicker-work encasing Elorence oil- 

 llasks, the name of wliicli I should like to know. 



"I am sure," said Gentleman Waife, " that there 

 are not two house-flies on a window-pane, two 

 minnows in that water, that would not present to 

 us interesting points of contrast as to temper and 

 dispositions. If house-flies and minnows could but 

 coin money, or set up a manufacture, contrive 

 something, in short, to buy or sell attractive to 

 Anglo-Saxon enterprise and intelligence, of course 

 Ave should soon have diplomatic relations v/ith them ; 

 and our despatches and newspapers would instruct 

 us to a T in the characters and propensities of 

 their leading personages. But where man has no 

 pecuniary nor ambitious interests at stake in his 

 commerce with any class of his fellow-creatures, his 

 information about them is extremely confused and 

 superficial. The best naturalists are mere gene- 

 ralizers, and think they have done a vast deal when 

 they classify a species. What should we know of 

 mankind if we had oiily a naturalist's definition of 

 man ? We only know mankind by knocking classi- 

 fication on the head, and studying each man as a 

 class in himself. Compare Buffou with Shakespeare ! 

 Alas, sir, can we never have a Shakespeare for house- 

 flies and minnows?" — Bnliccr's What wilt he do 

 tcith it ? 



Agabdh's View op Nature. — " To me, nature 

 appears neither a simple nor a reticulated series, but 

 an infinite and innumerable multitude of series 

 advancing from a lower to a higher grade, from any 

 part of which lesser series may project like rays, 

 some diverging more, some less, much as the trunk 

 of a tree is divided into larger branches, these again 

 into lesser and lesser ones, and at last into an almost 

 infinite number of leaves. One branch of the tree 

 becomes thick and strong, ramifies much, and reaches 

 the top of the tree, while another I'cmains weak, and 

 a third may be scarcely developed at all. In deter- 

 mining natiu'al alfinities we must take nature as our 

 guide in everything. It is not enough to take into 

 consideration all the characters of the forms v.'hich 

 we are investigating, and to develop the essence of 

 the family from a knowledge of all the forms be- 

 longing to it. We must further seek to discover 

 the direction of the evolution of each series, and 

 inquire whether its forms are advancing this way or 

 that. It is only_ after this has been done that we 

 can decide to which series a plant should be referred, 

 and whether apparent resemblances are to be con- 

 sidered affinities or analogies." 



The SMOOTfi Sxake {Coronella Icevis, Boie).— 

 Istliis a variety of the common snake? Certainly 

 not. It belongs, not only to a different genus, but 

 also to a different family of Colubrines. Is it a 

 native of Britain? Perhaps it is. The published 

 evidence is very imperfect in dates and localities. 

 This may do for " Gossip" but not for " Science." 



Origw of So'n'ERBY's English Botaxy. — A 

 letter from the son of James Sowerby, printed in 

 1S28, gives some information which may interest 

 those who now see that national work in its third 

 edition. The work owed its origin to the circum- 

 stance of Mr. Sowerby having made a number of 

 sketches of plants, to be introduced in the fore- 

 grounds of landscapes, which he was in the habit of 

 painting from nature. These sketches were shown 

 to various bot-anical friends, at whose suggestion 

 the work was begun, with the valuable assislianee of 

 Sir J. E. Smith ; and the only descriptions that v,ere 

 not written by that gentleman were supplied by the 

 late Dr. Sha-.r. In addition to the praise due to 

 ]\Ir. Sowerby, for the excellence of the drawings and 

 engravings in that work, some portion is due to him 

 for the spirit of enterprise with whicli he carried it 

 on ; for, although he had to depend upon portrait- 

 painting for the capital required, he still industriously 

 and steadily pursued his expensive project, mitil it 

 began to remunerate him (which was not for several 

 years), and he finally brought up a numerous family 

 to enjoy its profits, and lament the loss of one of the 

 best of parents. 



Ornithological Queries. — 1st. The passage of 

 wild geese has been lately much commented on in 

 the Times, and from the fact of their traversing 

 England, from high northern latitudes, by routes 

 somewhat divergcrit from those generally observed 

 locally, the correspondents of that paper have de- 

 duced the certainty of an tinusiially hard winter 

 here ! Query, why should such a conclusion be 

 enunciated, when we know that these, and many other 

 winter immigrant birds, seek yearly the milder 

 European latitudes ? — 2nd. If, as travellers tell us 

 is the case, the breeding resort of woodcocks be in 

 the marshy districts of Einland and Lapland (where 

 their nests are found in thousands among the dwarf 

 birch scrub of those parts), why should these birds 

 first make their appearance on the Devon and 

 Cornish, and south west coast of Ireland, for, by 

 geographical consistency, their flight, from the head 

 of the Gulf of Bothnia, in lat. 85" N., long. 22° W., 

 to lat. N. 50°, and long. 4° and 9° AV. respectively, 

 ought to be primarily the Lincolnshire fen-district, 

 as they fly bifiore the N.E. wind, on moonlight 

 nights mostly, and must pass over that terDptinghGA'm'j; 

 ground en route, if their flight be the direct track, 

 which I imagine it to be?— 3rd. Can it be ^JTOrec/ 

 that wild geese, woodcocks, and other ^northern 

 birds alight anywhere when thus in transitu, or do 

 they accomplish their 1,800 miles of flight (from 

 the North Cape, that is, the geese and duck species) 

 in a single stretch ?— 4th. Can any of your corre- 

 spondents inform me whether the west coasts of 

 Ireland and Scotland receive tliese their winter 

 visitants from tiie N.N.W. or EN.E. points of the 

 compass, for, if Ireland and South Greenland be 

 their habitat in summer, their flight thence, per 

 direct N.N.W. route, might follow naturally; and 

 they need not traverse England intermediately, as 

 they must do by the opposite route ? — TF. E. A. 



■*; 



