Aug. 1, 1865.] 



SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



183 



ZOOLOGY. 



Is THE Gkeat Black Woobpecker British ? 

 — In reference to the supposed occurrence of this 

 species in Britain, Mr. Stevenson {Zoologist, 9249) 

 has sho^Yn that the two birds killed at Scole were 

 undoubtedly the large spotted woodpecker. In 

 Latham's "General History of Birds," amongst 

 other works, it is stated, " one was killed in Lanca- 

 shire by Lord Stanley i " but Mr. Newman {Zoolo- 

 gist, 9627) says, "In the edition of Latham anno- 

 tated by the late Earl of Derby, and now in the 

 possession of the present earl, this passage is 

 erased, and in the margin is written, in his lordship's 

 own hand, 'a mistaken iclea.^ " Several other occur- 

 rences have been recorded, and it would be well 

 that all these should, if possible, be investigated. 



White Sparrows in Smoke. — I recollect last 

 summer seeing two white sparrows flying through 

 the smoke from the tall chimney of a cloth-mill at 

 Road — a short distance from the scene of the 

 noted Boad murder.— W. H. Williams, Jmi., M.D. 



Whiskered Tern. — Mr. Gatcombe has recorded 

 the occurrence of this rare bird near Plymouth 

 a short time since. It was picked up alive on the 

 water by some fishermen and brought ashore, but 

 soon died. It is now in the collection of Mr. E. C. 

 Hingston, of Plymouth. 



Myriad Zoophytes.— In one species found on 

 the Irish coast, and with cells upon one side only, 

 Dr. Gi'ant calculates there are more than eighteen 

 cells in a square line, or 1,800 in a square inch of 

 surface, and the branches of an ordinary specimen 

 present about ten square inches of surface ; so that 

 a common specimen of Flustra carbasea presents 

 more than 18,000 polypi, 396,000 tentacula, and 

 39,600,000 cilia. 



Novel Nest-building.— At Shilford, a farm on 

 the banks of the river Tyne, near the Stocksfield 

 station on the Newcastle and Carlisle Railway, a 

 pair of bluecaps built their nest in a somewhat 

 curious place. A farm labourer who is accustomed 

 to wash sheep in the Tyne, owns a pair of old boots, 

 wliich he uses for the purpose of protecting his feet 

 during the process of sheep-washing. These boots 

 are each year tied together and suspended on the 

 lower branches of an ash which grows near the edge 

 of the river. This season, on taking down his boots, 

 he was surprised to find several eggs roll out, and 

 that a pair of bluecaps had built their nest in one of 

 his boots. He restored the eggs to their nest, hung 

 up the boots without using them, and in the course 

 of a few days a colony of young bluecaps issued 

 from the pedal envelopes which had been this season 

 at least nut to a novel purpose. — T. P. Barkas. 



The Notes of the Cuckoo.— In White's " Sel- 

 borne" the following memorandum from the 7Lh 

 vol. of the " Transactions of the Linn^an Society " 

 is quoted :— " The cuckoo begins early in the season 

 with the interval of a minor third ; the bird then 

 proceeds to a major third; next to a fourth, then 

 a fifth ; after which his voice breaks without attain- 

 ing a minor sixth." It is added, that the circum- 

 stance had been observed long before, certainly as 

 far back as the publication of Heywood's Epigrams, 

 1587. But surely this is unsatisfactory. No men- 

 tion is made of the interval of a tone, which o;ie has 

 heard times out of number ; three times certainly I 

 heard it to-day, June loth. Besides which, at least 

 in this neighbourhood {i.e. near Earnborough "sta- 

 tion), minor thirds, major thirds, and fourths, have 

 been all of them heard plentifully during the whole 

 time that cuckoos have been singing. A fifth I 

 have never been fortunate enough to hear. Strangely 

 enough, the idea occurred to me some years ago, 

 that possibly the interval might widen with the 

 advance of the season ; and for some ten days or so 

 (I did not observe with any accuracy, not having 

 any real expectation of finding it thus) I did hear 

 minor thirds, then major thii'ds, then fourths, suc- 

 cessively. But as I began to suspect there might 

 be something in the idea, a whole sermon of tone- 

 intervals, minor thirds, major thirds, and foui'ths, 

 was all at once preached at me upon the text 

 of "hasty induction." I was therefore greatly 

 surprised afterwards in reading the quotation from 

 the " Transactions of the Linnaan Society." As 

 we are said to have one species only of the cuckoo, 

 is it possible that each bird foUov/s the order 

 referred to ? If so, some begin late, or are very long 

 over their first lessons. — S. G. 



The Arctic Clio.— This little mollusk {Clio 

 horealis) is about an inch in length, and so abundant 

 in the Arctic seas, as at times to colour the surface 

 for leagues, and to form an important supply of 

 food to the great whale. The head is furnished 

 with six retractile appendages, which are of a 

 reddish tint, from the number of distinct red spots 

 distributed over their surface, and amounting on 

 each to about 3,000. When examined under a 

 high magnifying power, each of these specks is 

 found to consist of about twenty suckers, each 

 mounted on a footstalk, so as to be projected 

 beyond the edge of their sheath, and applied to 

 their prey. Thus there will be 360,000 of these 

 microscopic suckers upon the head of one Clio ; an 

 apparatus for prghension perhaps unparalleled in 

 the creation. — Patersoii, 



The Roller. — A beautiful male, in perfect plu- 

 mage, was taken alive on board a vessel off Yarmouth 

 about the 25th May, as recorded by Mr. Stevenson 

 in the Zoologist (p. 966'!). 



