94 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



Eryngium maritimum, and ' PI ant a go cornopus. I 

 should be obliged to Mr. L. Creaghe-Haward for 

 fresh specimens of any Orobanche on any host in situ 

 other than those I have named as gathered by myself, 

 and would gladly send him 0. picridis, 0. caryophyl- 

 lacea, etc., in return. Specimens (which must be in a 

 freshly-gathered state for certain determination) from 

 any part of Great Britain or Ireland will be very 

 acceptable to the writer. I may add that 0. cruciata 

 (Bert.) is a species new to our Flora, found many 

 years ago in Argyle, Scotland ; but which was only 

 determined as the above last autumn. — Arthur 

 Bennett, Croydon. 



GEOLOGY. 



Pebbles of Native Sulphur at Beddgelert, 

 N. Wales. — In looking over an old collection of 

 minerals, I find some rolled pieces of native sulphur, 

 apparently derived from the drift labelled with the 

 above locality. Can the correctness of this be 

 checked by other observations, or is it a mistake ? It 

 has some bearing on geological theory. 



Jet at Weston-super-Mare. — I have also some 

 pieces of lignite hardened into jet, said to be from 

 this locality. I am inclined to doubt the accuracy of 

 the label. It looks so much like Whitby jet. If 

 correct, perhaps some mineralogist will kindly con- 

 firm. When shall we have a book devoted in an 

 exhaustive fashion to British minerals? — T. S. 



London Geological Field Class, conducted 

 by Professor H. G. Seeley, F.R.S.— The follow- 

 ing localities have been selected for the Saturday- 

 afternoon field excursions during the ensuing summer 

 session : — Physical Geography — April 29th, Eden- 

 bridge and Westerham, escarpment of lower green- 

 sand ; May 6th, Chesham and Amersham, Valley of 

 the Cheve ; May 13th, Epsom and Burford Bridge, 

 surface of the Chalk Downs ; May 22nd, Whit- 

 Monday, Midhurst and Petworth, South Downs and 

 the Weald. Tertiary Geology — May 27th, Amer- 

 sham, gravels in Chalk Valley ; June 3rd, Bracknell 

 and Warfield, lower London clay ; June 10th, Read- 

 ing, Reading beds ; June 17th, Upnor, Thanet sands 

 and Woolwich beds. Secondary Rocks — June 24th, 

 Betch worth to Burford Bridge, 'chalk and lower green- 

 sand ; July 1st, Dunton Green and Sevenoaks, 

 chalk, gault, and lower greensand ; July 8th, Three 

 Bridges for Worth, Wealden beds; July 15th, Hay- 

 wards Heath for Cuckfield, Wealden beds. The 

 general secretary is Mr. R. H. Bentley, 31 Adolphus 

 Road, Brownswood Park, South Hornsey, N., from 

 whom all information may be obtained as to member- 

 skip. 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



Sillgreen (p. 46). — In this part of Berkshire the 

 house-leek (S. tectorum) is commonly called silJgrecn 

 by the country folks. The juice of the leaves mixed 

 with cream is accounted a good remedy for burns and 

 scalds. — W. H. War tier, Fyfield, Abingdon. 



The Instinct of Locality in Animals.— The 

 "Spectator" says, "A cat carried a hundred miles 

 in a basket, a dog taken, perhaps, five hundred miles 

 by rail, in a few days may have found their way back 

 to the startiiig-point. So we have often been told, 

 and no doubt the thing has happened. We ihave 

 been astonished at the wonderful intelligence dis- 

 played. Magic, I should call it. Last week I heard 

 of a captain who sailed from Aberdeen to Arbroath. 

 He left behind him a dog, which, according to the 

 story, had never been in Arbroath, but when he 

 arrived there, the dog was waiting on the quay. I 

 was expected to believe that the dog had known his 

 master's destination, and been able to inquire the 

 way overland to Arbroath. Truly marvellous ! But 

 really, it is time to inquire more carefully as to what 

 these stories do mean ; we must cease to ascribe our 

 intelligence to animals, and learn that it is we that 

 often possess their instinct. A cat on a farm will 

 wander many miles in search of prey, and will there- 

 fore be well acquainted with the country for many 

 miles round. It is taken fifty miles away. Again it 

 wanders, and comes across a bit of country it knew 

 before. What more natural than that it should go to 

 its old home? Carrier-pigeons are taught 'homing' 

 by taking them gradually longer flights from home, 

 so that they may learn the look of the country. We 

 cannot always discover that a dog actually was 

 acquainted with the route by which it wanders home ; 

 but it is quite absurd to imagine, as most people at 

 once do, that it was a perfect stranger to the lay of 

 the land. To find our way a second time over 

 ground we have once trod is scarcely intelligence ; 

 we can only call it instinct, though the word does 

 not in the least explain the process. Two years ago 

 I first visited Douglas, in the Isle of Man. I reached 

 the station at 11 p.m. ; I was guided to a house a 

 mile through the town. I scarcely paid any attention 

 to the route ; yet next morning I found my way by 

 the same route to the station, walking with my head 

 bent, deeply thinking all the time about other things 

 than the way. I have the instinct of locality. Most 

 people going into a dark room that they know are 

 by muscular sense guided exactly to the very spot 

 they wish : so people who have the instinct of locality 

 may wander over a moor, exactly to the place they 

 wish to reach, without thinking of where they go. 

 There may be no mental exercise connected with this. 

 I have known a lady of great intelligence who would 

 lose her way within half-a-mile of the house she had 

 lived in forty years. This feeling about place belongs 

 to that part of us that we have in common with the 

 lower creatures. We need not postulate that the 

 animals ever show signs of possessing our intelligence ; 

 they possess in common with us, what is not intelli- 

 gence, but instinct." — A. J. Alackintosh. 



Song of the Wagtail. — Both the pied and the 

 grey wagtail are among the songsters whose vocal 

 powers often pass unnoticed : the same remark, I 

 think, applies to the rich bell-like melody of the 

 stonechat, and the inward warble of the spotted 

 flycatcher. In my experience all these birds sing 

 for a very short season in spring, resuming their notes 

 (with, perhaps, the exception of the stonechat) for a 



