SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



[Dec. 1, 1865. 



Several specimens of the Clouded Yellow Butter- 

 fly iColias Uchisa) were seen at Newby, near Annan, 

 on the 5th October, 1865, when the Dumfries and 

 Galloway Natural History Society met there. It 

 has been seen several times in Dumfriesshire before, 

 at the following places and dates :— Obtained by Dr. 

 Gibson, on the 17th August, 1857, at Kirkmahoe,— 

 seven were taken, and several more seen near 

 Glancaple Quay ; another taken by Dr. Gibson, in 

 September, 1858, at Colvend ; and those of this 

 year on the 5th October, at Newby, near Annan. 

 —C. D. M. S. 



The Moa or New Zealand. — The marvellous 

 adventures and journeys of Sindbad the Sailor have 

 at some time or other been familiar to most of us. 

 It would seem that his gigantic bird, the Roc, had, 

 however, at some remote date a distant relation in 

 the Moa or Dinoruis. Erom time to time accounts 

 have reached this country of the native traditions 

 respecting this gigantic bird, now supposed, and with 

 good reason, to be extinct. Bones of it have been 

 found from time to time, and from them Professor 

 Owen and other naturalists have drawn on science 

 and imagination as to its probable size and shape. 

 We now have a link that is a very important one in 

 the chain of construction ; and that is the arrival of 

 an egg of this bird from New Zealand. It was dis- 

 coverd by a man in the employment of Mr. Eyffe, at 

 Kai Koras. He was digging the foundation of a 

 house, and on the side of a small mound came upon 

 the tgg in question. It was in the hands of a 

 skeleton Maori, and with the skeleton there were 

 numerous tools of sharpened stone, including a spear- 

 head, axe, &c. In digging out the egg it was slightly 

 injured, but the pieces were preserved. It measures 

 ten inches long, seven inches broad, and the shell is 

 about the thickness of a shilling. It was brought 

 over in the ship Ravenscraig, and was sold by 

 auction by Mr. J. C. Stevens, of King Street, Covent 

 Garden, on the 24!th Nov., for SA2^. — Gardener'' s 

 Chronicle. 



A Visitation" of Spideus.— On Sunday after- 

 noon, October 15th, my attention was directed to a 

 colony of spiders which were industriously weaving 

 their tiny webs over the iron railing in front of my 

 residence. On examination I found they were small, 

 black, glistening, active, and aerial, as they floated 

 through the air in a peculiar manner, and with 

 apparent ease. They were all industriously engaged 

 on the tops of the railings only, covering them with 

 a web of the utmost delicacy. My curiosity Vt'as 

 excited by the fact that not two or three rails onl}^, 

 but all the rails in front of my residence had their 

 busy group of arachnideau workers. The number 

 on each rail varied, some having twenty, others five 

 spiders upon them ; but on an average there were 

 eight spiders to each rail. I extended my inspection 



to the rails of the neighbouring houses, and found 

 them equally covered with spiders. I examined 

 several streets, squares, and churches in the neigh- 

 bourhood, and without exception each rail was the 

 scene of a busy working colony. I estimated that 

 in my own locality they covered about three miles 

 of iron railing. I subsequently ascertained that 

 on the same day they were equally numerous about 

 one mile north of Newcastle, in the centre of the 

 town, and at the extreme west end, my residence 

 being in the northern outskirts ; so that the spiders 

 may be fairly represented as covering the entire 

 town. A gentleman from Hexham, a town twenty 

 miles from Newcastle, informed me that they were 

 abundant there also. If any of your readers south 

 or north of Newcastle saw and recorded this 

 phenomenon, it would afford the means of ascertain- 

 ing the speed at which these spiders travel. I 

 secured a few of these spiders in a bottle, and have 

 since mounted them in balsam as microscopical 

 objects : four are female and one male. They do 

 not exceed an ordinary ant in size, and are not unlike 

 them in general appearance, although they are in 

 the strictest sense spiders. They have four legs, 

 with three claws on each, on each side of the 

 thoracic cavity. They have mandibles of the most 

 keen, strong, and piercing kind at each side of the 

 head, and they have palpi fixed at the roots of 

 the mandibles. Each male palpus has eight jointSj 

 and is terminated by a strong pair of pincers. There 

 is a remarkable feature connected with the male 

 palpi— viz., on each palpus there is a beautiful wing 

 of considerable size ; but whether the wings are in- 

 tended to aid in aerostation or not I do not know ; 

 they are there, however, and similar appendages do 

 not appear on any of the spiders wliich arc figured 

 in Mr. Blackwell's elaborate two-volume work on 

 British spiders, published under the auspices of 

 the Ray Society. The spider to which I now direct 

 the attention of your readers was unknown in Britain 

 when Mr Blackwell's elaborate work was issued, 

 and they are consequently not figured there. They 

 have only been recently noticed by Mr. Blackwell, 

 in the " Annals of Natural History," vol. for 1863. 

 Previous to 1863, they had not been observed in 

 England, and then only in Denbighshire and 

 Caernarvonshire. Now they have visited Newcastle 

 in numbers of which it would be no exaggeration to 

 say that there were several millions. The most 

 striking fact, however, has yet to be related : no 

 entomologist in this neighbourhood ever saw this 

 species before ; they all made their appearance in on3 

 day, October 15th, and since that time, although 

 I have looked carefully for them, not a single 

 spider of the species has ever been seen in the 

 neighbourhood. Mr. Blackwell says that the spider 

 is an aeronautic species, and that its name is 

 Nericne denirpalpu. — T. F. Barkas, Netecastle-on 

 Tyne, Nov, 4. 



