110 



SCIENCE. GOSSIP. 



[Mai- ], 1865. 



and water ; warm over a spirit-lamp until ebulKtion, 

 then wash, the leaf in water, place on a fresh slip, 

 and add a drop of iodide of zinc solution, and put 

 on the cover. If the leaf is dry, steep it previously 



Fig, 81. — Showing Cell-aiTangement. 



in water. The preparations thus obtained are 

 aiiiougst the most beautiful of microscopic objects, 

 and the physiologist cannot but be delighted with 

 the precision with which the different layers of the 

 cell are mapped out." M. C. C. 



ASSYRIAN BOTANY. 



A MOST curious fact in natural historylias recently 

 •^-^ been brought to light by the decipherment of 

 Assyrian inscriptions. The history of the artificial 

 migration of plants — a very interesting and intricate 

 subject — has been carried back to a period of great 

 antiquity, Kuthami, a Mendaite writer in the 

 fourth century, a.d., tells us that the kings of 

 Assyria were accustomed to bring back with them 

 from their campaigns in foreign countries any plant 

 wliich they thought would be valuable and useful ; 

 that in this way, for instance, the cherry was trans- 

 planted from tlie banks of the Jordan to the gardens 

 of Nineveh and Babylon. These statements are 

 strikingly confirmed by an inscription of Tiglath- 

 Pileser I., an Assyrian monarch, who was carried 

 captive to Babylon, B.C. 1110. The king therein 

 says : — " The pine-tree, the likkarina-tree, and the 

 algum-tree, these trees, which none of the former 

 kings, my fathers, had planted, I took from the 

 countries which I subdued, and I planted them in 

 the groves of my own country, and I called (the 

 plantations) by the name of groves ; whatever was 

 not in my own country I took and placed in the 

 groves of Assyria." The translation "algum-tree" 

 is not quite certain; the word in the original is 

 (daka{ni), which certainly bears a greater resem- 

 blance to the native Sanskrit name valgii{ka) than 

 does the Hebrew almug. If the identification can 

 1)0 maintained, it will be a proof of the occupation 

 of the Malabar coast by the Aryans as early as the 

 twclftli century B.C. This will not be the only case 



in which ethnology has received important aid from 

 the botanical department of natural history. The 

 northern home of our Aryan ancestors is borne evi- 

 dence to by the fact that the " birch. " — the denizea 

 of a cold climate — is the only tree having the same 

 name both in Eastern and Western Aryan, i.e., both 

 in Sanskrit and in the various languages of Europe. 

 So, again, we learn from the fact that "flax" (Lat. 

 linim, Greek \ivov, Goth, lebi) is known by different 

 names in Eastern and Western Aryan, that the sepa- 

 ration of the forefathers of the Hindus and of the 

 Greeks and Romans took place before either had 

 exchanged an agricultural for a pastoral life. 



We have reason to hope that the present re- 

 searches into the early records of mankind may throw 

 some light upon the primitive history and cultiva- 

 tion of the cereals. A. Sayce. 



THE SHRIKE, OR BUTCHER BIRD. 



TN Science -Gossip (p. CI), before quoting from 

 -^ " Knapp's Journal of a Naturalist," you say there 

 is some confusion between the accounts in " Mon- 

 tague's Ornithological Dictionary " and " Knapp's 

 Journal" respecting the great and the red-backed 

 shrike. As a daughter of the late Mr. Knapp, I am 

 able to say the bird he mentions is Lcmius collurio ; 

 that bird was common in Gloucestershire. I never 

 sav/ the great shrike except in a private collection of 

 stuifed birds ; with us the red-backed shrike would 

 often attack the nests of the small birds, and carry 

 oif the unfledged young. 



In the neighboui'hood I now live in, not far from 

 Whitehaven, Lanms collurio is often seen. In the 

 summer of 1857 or 1858, when strolling down a lane 

 between the villages of Netherton and St. Bees 

 with my little boy, we fell in with a brood of young 

 butcher-birds with their parents ; and while telling the 

 child why called butcher-birds, the constant buzzing of 

 the dorr beetle attracted my attention to a thorn bush, 

 Avhere we found (besides moths) three or four dorrs, 

 not fixed as I have always before seen them with 

 the body spitted, but with the thorn in each instance 

 through one wing case, and these were spinning 

 round and round. This was recalled to my recol- 

 lection this summer, by finding a dorr beetle flying 

 about with a large round hole in one elytra ; in all 

 probability this fortunate beetle, by long spinning, 

 had worn the hole, and thus been enabled to fly off 

 its spiked perch. L. M. P. 



N.B. — The shrike in Cumberland is called skrike- 

 pie or skrike bird. — L. M. P. 



In the beauty of form, or of moral character, or 

 of the material creation, it is that which is most 

 veiled which is most beautiful. — Stonemason of Saint 

 Point. 



m 



