Oct. 1, 1865.] 



SCIENGE-GOSSIP. 



227 



The injury he had received possibly befell him in 

 another way, of which I met an example some years 

 later. One fine June day I was crossing, with a 

 young friend, over the chalk downs east of Box 

 Hill, in Surrey, and in the middle of a small patch 

 of enclosed land we noticed what appeared at a 

 distance as a piece of black cloth waving in the 

 wind. On coming closer, it turned out to be a rook 

 pinned to the ground by one leg, which was caught 

 and horribly mangled in a steel trap. A very pitifid 

 sight it was. A handsome young male, in the finest 

 condition, his plumage still retaining a little of the 

 superficial down of his nursing days, his wings well 

 developed, and his lustrous black eye looking up 

 with something of the touching expression attributed 

 to that of the dying gazelle. It was to little purpose 

 that we forced his shattered limb from the bitter 

 gripe of the iron. In a few minutes he would, 

 indeed, have regained the company of his kind, 

 whose cawing was audible far down the valley, but 

 only to be driven from their society to die a linger- 

 ing death, or, after weeks of suffering, to pine in 

 solitude for the rest of his days. 



There occurs to me only one other way to account 

 for the strange life of these hermits, viz., that old 

 age has crippled their energies, and, exposing them 

 to the ill usage of their fellows — who with all their 

 sociability are far from tender-hearted — has forced 

 them to a lonely life. It is true that the perils to 

 which a rook is exposed, in this thickly-inhabited 

 country, are manifold, and there are many chances 

 to one against his reaching old age ; but the case is 

 a possible one, and all the more so because there is 

 a very old standing impression that the tribe to 

 which he belongs is endowed with longevity. The 

 ancients had a notion that the natural term of his 

 life is nine hundred years, and in the Greek antho- 

 logy occurs an appellation (icopu)veicdi3r]) applied to a 

 very aged person, which is curiously compounded of 

 the Greek noun for "crov/" and the proper name 

 Hecuba, who, being the mother of a very numerous 

 offspring, must needs have been a tolerably old 

 woman. Hence the meaning is, " as old as a crow 

 and, Hecuba." I commend the subject to any of 

 your readers who, being more happily circumstanced 

 than I am, have the liberty of ranging with a gun 

 over lonely moors. I doubt not they will soon meet 

 with one of these anchorites, and determine a 

 question which I can only guess at. H. 



TLY PARASITES. 



THE common house-fly carries about with it two 

 insects of a parasitic nature (figs.l& 2 enlarged). 

 No. 2 is the smallest and the most common; some- 

 times three of them and more wiU be found on one 

 fly; but I have not found more than two of the 

 largest (No. 1) ; indeed it was only this summer 

 that I knew that they were the prey of the latter. 



and had seen the smallest some years ago ; neither 

 have I found both kinds on the same fly. Some of 

 your readers may have seen them, and will iierhaps 

 favour us with further information concerning them. 



uSi?^^^^ 



"s^^^gyjfef^, t 



No. 1 is extremely like Tenebrio molitor, the beetle 

 of the mealworm ; both are of a red-brown colour. 

 The question suggests itself, whether flies do not 

 carry about and deposit larvae and small beetles of 



various kinds, an oifice for which they are admirably 

 adapted from their erratic character. Nobody can 

 tell what sort of places and company they do not 

 visit in their wanderings, and I cannot help thinking 

 various small insects attach themselves to them 

 and are quickly conveyed to places more congenial 

 to certain periods of their being. And this idea is 

 favoured when the object of the pincer-like appen- 

 dages of No. 1 is sought. What can they be for, but 

 to fuiTiish a means of attaching itself to some larger 

 insect with more extensive powers of locomotion, 

 and thus being transported to the nest stage of its 

 life ? Queer-looking insects are always turning up 

 in unexpected places, and I have no doubt many of 

 them are dropped by the flies ! It is probable that 

 by this means many of these " odds and ends " find 

 their way into the human stomach, and produce 

 various disorders in the skin. — G. Bailey. 



. q2 



