2IO 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



Devon and Cornwall are the only counties which 

 supply themselves with eggs and poultry, and have 

 sufficient left over to export to the rest of England, 

 Surrey and Sussex devote themselves chiefly to table- 

 poultry, and last year one district alone, that of 

 Heathfield, sent up 70,000/. of fatted chickens. East 

 Anglia contributes splendid 'geese and turkeys, no 

 other part better, whilst Buckinghamshire is famous 

 for its Aylesbury and other ducks. The cottagers 

 who rear ducklings are there called "duckers," and 

 make 40,000/. a year out of the job. It is evident that 

 the old cry that poultry don't pay depends upon the 

 keeper. Russia and Canada are much colder 

 countries than Great Britain, and yet they manage 

 to export eggs at half the price of our new-laid ones. 

 The question of poultry-breeding and eggs ought to 

 be prominently brought before the notice of our 

 village population by all Technical Education Com- 

 mittees of County Councils. There is not the 

 slightest reason why our agricultural labourers should 

 not add at least five shillings a week to their income 

 by keeping fowls and selling eggs. The secret is in 

 knowing how to do it, and in taking a little trouble. 

 Then we would back the hens against the pig. 



A NEW invention hails from Paris, apparently 

 based upon our system of slip-carriages on fast 

 railw'ay trains. It is an apparatus by which the 

 driver of a vehicle may release it from runaway 

 horses. This releasing action takes place in the 

 traces, so that, with a simple mechanism, the driver 

 can, by pulling a strap, work a spring buckle fixed 

 at the end of the traces so that they fall to the 

 ground, the horses being released by other spring 

 buckles. This mechanism cannot be put in action 

 accidentally during ordinary driving. This invention 

 sounds feasible, but evidently it could only be 

 applied to four-wheeled carriages ; and one wonders 

 what the effect upon the fast-driving carriage the 

 release of the runaway horses would be, unless the 

 driver was also provided with'a brake. Also, where 

 would the released and mad horses steer to, and 

 amongst whom ? 



Mount Etna is (at the time of writing) in a state 

 of energetic eruption, more active than has been 

 known for nearly twenty years back. The lava 

 streams have descended to a lower level than 

 heretofore. 



The British Association Meeting at Edinburgh 

 this year appears to have been, in every respect, a 

 great success. The "Reports" of the President's 

 Address and the addresses of the various presidents 

 of sections have been published at is., and we 

 recommend our readers to get a copy. (Spottiswood 

 & Co., New Street Square, London.) 



The Rev. H. H. Winwood, F.G.S., has just 

 written a charming account of the late "Charles 



Moore, F.G.S. (of Bath), and his work," to which is 

 added a list of the fossil types and described specimens 

 in the Bath Museum, by Edward Wilson, F.G.S. 



Mr. L. Upcott Gill has issued a capital illus- 

 trated little manual (price is), entitled "Butterfly 

 and Moth Collecting," by George E. Simms. 



Anyone who has tramped through the country 

 districts of France cannot fail to have been struck 

 with the comparative absence of small birds. He 

 may tramp for miles in some places without seeing 

 anything but a couple of magpies. Nearly every 

 bird is a game-bird to the French peasant, and finds 

 its way into the pot. Nature, however, is not to be 

 trifled with. Her revenge is sure, and she can wait 

 for it. Protectors of small birds are not wanting 

 among the French naturalists. Bird extermination 

 has been coped with by the law, but evidently the 

 flavour of the pot is overwhelming. At any rate, 

 a French scientific journal states that the laws 

 against bird-destruction are openly violated by the 

 peasant farmers. Three-fourths of these birds are 

 known to feed on insects. The local extermination 

 of these natural destroyers means an enormous and 

 overwhelming development of insect life. In con- 

 sequence, the cultivation of wheat is becoming less 

 and less remunerative, and one of the causes of this is 

 traceable to the destruction of larks, whose food 

 largely consists of the larvae of a small beetle which 

 commits extensive ravages on the roots of wheat 

 plants. The vine-growers of France are also uttering 

 protests against the destruction of small birds, and 

 they state that nowadays there is scarcely any bird- 

 life visible in their vineyards. 



Every man who reads the agricultural news- 

 papers has heard of the experimental farm at 

 Rothamsted, where for more than a quarter of a 

 century Sir John Lawes and Mr. R. Warrington 

 have been conducting experiments, at their own 

 expense, which have proved of the highest value to 

 scientific agriculture. The information gained from 

 the experiments has been freely given to the world, 

 and hundreds, if not thousands, of thoughtful farmers 

 in this country are grateful for it. Mr. Warrington's 

 name is associated with the discovery of the nitrifica- 

 tion of the soil, one of the most valuable discoveries 

 for the world which patient science has ever given to 

 it. His name is as well, if not better, known in the 

 United States as in Great Britain. He has been 

 lecturing by invitation before the Association of 

 American Experiment Stations, and so much value 

 has been set upon these discourses that the United 

 States Department of Agriculture has published a 

 report of them for general distribution at a remark- 

 ably cheap rate. The United States possess upwards 

 of 50 Agricultural Experiment Stations, each of them 

 endowed with an income, equal, or surpassing, that 

 possessed by Rothamsted. In England we have only 



