258 



harvest, but the turnips and the mown grass feel the effects of 

 want of rain exposed as they ai'e daily to intense heat. Nightly 

 dews, however, have been heavy, and fogs at sea and by the coast 

 have been frequent. 



The disease among Grouse is again prevalent in certain dis- 

 tricts, though less so than 1877. The cause does not seem to have 

 been discovered, and no remedy has been found ; meanwhile the 

 rents of moors have in consequence greatly fallen, and the Moor- 

 proprietor begs of the Naturalist to tell him all about it. "Would 

 it not, in every respect, be better, but for themselves especially, 

 that the game preservers should employ some competent person, 

 and pay him handsomely, to discover the cause, and if possible 

 apply a remedy, instead of waiting to see if peradventure, by the 

 next year, the pest may have disappeared ? 



.It was some time ago suggested that the Coalo'svners should 

 combine to furnish a moderate yearly sum of money to give em- 

 ployment to some fitting person to collect the fossils met with in 

 tlie pits, and if this suggestion had been carried into execution 

 we might by tliis time have had a series of vegetable and animal 

 remains unequalled in the world. These bad times forbid the 

 hope that this suggestion should now be realised. 



Our ingenious cousins in the United States have discovered 

 that '• tlie busy Bee" is too slow, wants help, and would ' move 

 on' faster, if it did not spend so much time in making wax to 

 construct its comb preparatoiy to laying up lioney. They have 

 therefore conceived the idea, and brought it to a practical result, 

 of manufacturing "Comb Foundations," and tliese are now mak- 

 ing their way in England. Tlie only material used is pure yellow 

 beeswax ; this is made to pass through a sort of small rolling mill 

 specially constnicted, and is thus converted into thin sheets (in 

 England about one-sixteenth of an incli thick) of convenient size, 

 on each side of which is at tlie same time impressed the exact 

 hexagonal pattein of honeycomb reciuired. On these foundations, 

 introduced into the hives, the Bees begin at once to build up 

 their cells, a« if conscious of the convenience, and thus, being 

 saved much time and labour, begin to store their honey much 



