IIARDWICK& S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



laterally on the inferior aspect. Its range of vision 

 must therefore be very extensive, and its coating of 

 grey hairs would render it the more indistinguishable. 



To Mr. Pocock of the British Museum, to whom I 

 submitted these spiders, I am indebted for its identi- 

 fication as Argiope aurelia, Walckenaer. It belongs 

 to the same family as our own garden-spider. Its 

 web, however, does not appear to have been before 

 described. 



Fig. 71 is from a photograph of a web which had a 



Fig. 72. 



height of between six and seven feet. There were 

 some half-dozen of them built in a partially cleared 

 space in the forest. A ray of sunlight falling upon it, 

 gave it a beautifully glistening appearance. This was 

 the largest, and having cleared sufficient room for my 

 camera, I photographed it. The bottom part of the 

 web is in the form of an inverted widely-spread 

 funnel, the top being truncated, leaving a circular 

 aperture of three-quarters of an inch in diameter. 

 The spider lived beneath the cone, and gained access 

 to the upper portions of his snare by the hole in its 

 top. Numerous threads arose from the funnel and 

 were attached to an overhanging branch, more than 

 six- feet above. The spider has eight eyes, arranged 

 in the form of the letter X, on the top of the head. 

 Expansion of legs, one-and-a-half inches. General 

 surface of body smooth, and in colour of varying 

 shades of brown. Sides of abdomen white speckled 

 with black. Thorax with medium dorsal, and two 

 lateral white streaks. 



Mr. Pocock was unable to name it, but judged it 

 to be nearly related to the genus Ocyale, a group of 

 hunting-spiders, of which the common Lycosa is a 

 good British example. 



W. G. Clements. 



We are glad to welcome a new periodical, entitled 

 "The Sussex and Hants Naturalist." Mr. Harcourt 

 Bath is as usual to the fore on his favourite topic, the 

 dragon-flies, and other papers appear by H. Durrant, 

 Albert Waters, etc. 



SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



" Those who live longest, can laugh loudest," 

 says an oft-quoted, brutal proverb. Alas ! the 

 opposite is the truth. One's oldest and dearest 

 friends, whose friendship has grown into half a man's 

 individuality and happiness, die off. It is an ex- 

 foliation of personal life. Such is the case with the 

 death of Mr. T. G. Bayfield, of Norwich, and the 

 editor of this magazine. A close, intimate, delight- 

 ful friendship of thirty years has been sundered. Mr. 

 Bayfield was one of the best all-round men in East 

 Anglia — archaeologist, linguist, botanist, geologist;, 

 etc. — and the most unassuming, modest, and 

 humorous of men. His death is a decided loss to 

 scientific Norwich. 



On March 8, a conversazione took place in the 

 large hall of the Bow and Bromley Institute, to com- 

 memorate the twenty-second year's existence of the 

 above-named society. There were thirty micro- 

 scopes on the tables. Whilst the members and 

 friends were examining the objects exhibited, the ear 

 was delighted by an excellent organ recital by Mr. 

 Gilbert W. Tozer, pupil assistant St. Peter's, Eaton 

 Square. At nine o'clock photo-micrographs were 

 projected through the magic lantern on a twenty foot 

 screen, and from ten o'clock, the remainder of the 

 evening was devoted to dancing. If the number 

 present was a guide it was evidently much ap- 

 preciated. 



From time to time we hear of terrible storms or 

 atmospherical disturbances, from which, happily, the 

 British Islands are fairly free. They generally visit 

 large continental or oceanic areas. Only a week or 

 so ago, our daily newspapers recorded the occur- 

 rence of another fatal and destructive visitation of a 

 cyclone or tornado in North America. Sometimes 

 these storms have been seen to descend directly from 

 the upper parts of the atmosphere to the earth, and 

 to re-ascend three or four times during their progress, 

 of less than twenty miles, The chief authority on 

 this subject is M. Faye, who has contributed various 

 papers upon it to the Paris Academy of Sciences. 

 According to his well-worked-out theory, cyclones, 

 tornadoes, and waterspouts have their origin, not in 

 hot convection currents from the soil, but in 

 disturbances of the upper strata of the atmosphere. 

 He explains the observed cases of upward suction of 

 heavy objects as the effects of the reflection of down- 

 ward currents of the soil. 



Professor Oliver, the other day, laid before ihe 

 Scientific Committee of the Royal Horticultural 

 Society, the result of some very important experi- 

 ments and observations, which of course apply 

 equally well to all towns and cities where fogs are apt 

 to prevail. We are now perfectly aware that fogs 



