HA R D WICKE ' S ^CIENCE-GOSSIP. 



prophet, and a profusion of bright red hips predicts 

 a severe winter : the words of the rhyme run thus : — 



" The thorns and briars, vermilion hue, 

 Now full of hips and haws are seen, 

 If village prophecies be true, 

 They prove that winter will be keen." 



There is a charming old eastern fable in connec- 

 tion with the rose and the nightingale, which has 

 been rendered into verse by Thackeray. The bird is 

 supposed to have been dumb till it fell in love with 

 the rose, then it forthwith poured forth its song : — 



" Under the boughs I sat and listened still, 

 I could not have my fill, 



' How comes,' I said, ' such music to his bill 1 

 Tell me for whom he sings so beautiful a trill ? \ 

 ' Once I was dumb,' then did the bird disclose, 

 ' But looked upon the Rose ; 

 And in the garden where the loved one grows 

 I straightway did begin sweet music to compose." 



There is one more old legend concerning this 

 flower which I cannot resist giving ; it is a legend 

 peculiar to Schleswig, and tells us how the devil, having 

 fallen from heaven, wished to get back again, and so 

 tried to make himself a ladder of the thorns of the 

 wild briar by which he might ascend, but God did 

 not allow the plant to grow in height, only to extend 

 itself j therefore, in spite, the devil made the thorns 

 all to turn downwards, towards the earth. Others say 

 that the plant incurred this curse because Judas 

 hanged himself on it. 



Everyone that is at all acquainted with the rose- 

 tree must be also intimately acquainted with its 

 enemy in the animal kingdom, commonly known as 

 the green-fly, whose right name is aphis. It increases 

 and multiplies at such an enormous rate, that if not 

 promptly killed, the whole plant will be covered with 

 them in a few days. They suck the juice out of the 

 leaves and stems with long suckers which stand to 

 them in the place of mouths. The]mystery is how the 

 first one comes ; most people say that in the autumn 

 they lay their eggs along the branches and cover 

 them over with a secretion, and in the spring they 

 are hatched ; but my belief is that they lay their eggs 

 in the winter-bud, and as the leaf discloses itself the 

 eggs are hatched and these little creatures appear. 

 They also have their enemies, and the grub of the 

 ladybird loves to feed on them. There are other 

 creatures which seem to be sent into the world simply 

 for the sake of devouring the aphis, but they are not 

 often to be found on the rose-tree, though they are 

 common enough on many of the larger trees. The 

 aphis should be killed as soon as it appears, before 

 it has time to increase ; if allowed to have its own 

 way, it will soon deprive the plant of its life-sap. 



Ida A. Sharpe. 



We are sorry to say that owing to a mistake, 

 the name of the author of " The Development of 

 the Colours of Flowers through Insect Selection," 

 in the June number of Science-Gossip, was 

 omitted. The author of the article is Mr. Edward 

 H. Robertson. 



A DAY IN "WESTMORELAND. 

 By J. Chas. Smith. 



ON a bright morning in the last week of June, 

 being desirous of a day's excursion into 

 Westmoreland, I started by the first train from 

 Penrith to Clifton with my vasculum and boxes for 

 holding shells. The journey by rail only lasts a few 

 minutes, but even in that short time much of interest 

 can be seen. After crossing the river Eamont, which 

 divides the two counties Cumberland and Westmore- 

 land, we have on our left Yanwath Hall, a building, 

 judging from its parapets and battlements, probably 

 dating from the fifteenth century ; it was a place of 

 importance during the Border raids in 1715 and 1745. 

 On crossing the river Lowther we have on the left 

 a square tower, Clifton Hall ; it was near here that 

 the well-known skirmish of Clifton Moor took place, 

 in the winter of 1745, between the Royalists under 

 the Duke of Cumberland, and the Highlanders. 

 Leaving the train at Clifton station, I took the road 

 over the moor in the direction of Melkinthorpe, the 

 air perfumed by the wild roses that abundantly 

 festooned the hedgerows ; the song of birds and the 

 plaintive cry of the lapwing as it swooped down upon 

 the lowland marshes pink with ragged robin and 

 orchids, made the walk seem short and pleasant. 



I soon reached Waterfalls Bridge over the Leath, pic- 

 turesque with its covering of ivy, lichen, harts-tongue, 

 spleenwort, and fragilis, which love the damp lime- 

 stone nooks of this lovely valley. The limestone is of 

 the Yoredale series, and is principally composed of 

 encrenites, amongst which I noticed a few small fossil 

 trilobites of the commoner kind, and the beautiful 

 lace-like sea mat " Polyzoa," also shells of various 

 kinds, from the large productus to the small 

 gasteropoda or univalves ; ripple-marked slabs, 

 showing the annular markings of worms with the 

 sharp ridges made by each turn of the body. 



In this valley, under some loose fragments of rock, 

 I found a quantity of Clausilia rzigosa and its variety 

 dubia, Helix arbustorum, Btdimus obscunis with its 

 shells covered with mud to protect it from its 

 enemies ; and the commonest of the Pupa umbilicata, 

 Cochlicopa tridens, commoner here among the moss 

 than C. lubrica, also the well-named Helix pulchella, 

 and mollusc Carychium minimum carrying its shell 

 horizontally on its back. The best find here was a 

 few full-grown specimens of Clausilia laminata, which 

 are rare in this neighbourhood ; they were under the 

 fallen branches of some trees ; this shell is named 

 from its being marked with plaits or folds. It may 

 interest non-conchologists to know that the Clausilia 

 is so called, because of its having a clausium or door by 

 which the aperture of the shell is closed : the clausium 

 consists of a spirally-twisted thin plate, situated in 

 the last whorl of the shell and attached to the 

 columella or the axis round which the whorls turn. 



