134 



THE YOUNG NATURALIST. 



also in Asia, as far south as Persia, Turk- 

 estan, Cashmere, South Siberia, and Japan ; 

 resident in the Canaries, the Azores ; win- 

 ters in North Africa, Palestine, India, Cey- 

 lon, the Andaman Islands, Java, Burmah, 

 some of the Phillippian Islands, Formosa 

 and China. 



Nest. — The nest of this species is al- 

 ways placed near some mountanous stream, 

 on shelves of a rock, or among loose stones. 

 One sent me from Ireland has the outside 

 composed entirely of fibrous roots, lined 

 with horse-hair, a little wool and a few 

 feathers. Sometimes moss is used in the 

 construction. 



Eggs. — The number varies from four 

 to six. The ground colour is drabish or 

 yellowish white, indistinctly blotched and 

 spotted with pale ochre brown. 



Varieties. — I have never seen a variety. 



RED BLOOD DISCS: 



WHAT THEY ARE, WHERE THEY 

 ARE BORN, AND WHERE THEY DIE. 



By J. W. Williams, B.Sc, F.S.Sc. (Lond). 

 President of the "Amateur Scientific 

 Research Associati)n." 



If you take a drop of frog's blood and 

 put it under a good microscope, numerous 

 red discs or corpuscles will be presented to 

 your view. These are about the in. in 

 diameter, but, as will be seen from the fol- 

 lowing table compiled from the Sydenham 

 edition of Hewson's works, their size has 

 no relation whatever to the size of the ani- 

 mal from which they are taken. 



Mammals. 



Diameter. Diameter. 



Man z&js Wolf J8 v* 



Brown Baboon 3 ^ ff3 - Striped hysena . . 3 7 \ . 



Bat 4 , l 7 B Spotted hyaena ..-g^ 



Racoon Lion 



Diameter 



Dog 



Fox 



Diameter. 



Whale. 

 Horse . 

 Stag . 



■ S5? J 







'4117 







3 25T 



Giraffe 











•4"¥TJTT 







t 



6 0 8 8 



Musk deer of Java 





Raven . I 

 Wren . , 

 Swallow 

 Cock 



Birds. 









L \ 51 Peacock . 



••*1835 



A™ Quail 



l 



2 ls3 D ^k 



l 



Turkey . . . 





Green turtle. , 

 Land tortaise 



Reptiles. 



ihi Lizard T J- fi5 



•ik Viper 

 Amphibia. 

 Toad . 



110 8 



Fish. 



Pike 

 Eel.. 



Frog 



Perch . . . 

 Carp 



In all mamiferous animals, with the 

 exception of the Camelidae, they are round 

 non-nucleated discs ; in all the other 

 verterbrates, oval, more or less flattened 

 from side to side, and possess a central 

 nucleus. Owing to this the mammalian 

 corpuscles look darker in the middle than 

 at the sides when seen with a moderate 

 magnifying power, or at a distant focus; 

 but when the focus is brought nearer, the 

 opposite obtains, the middle looking light 

 and the edges dark. Some, too, appear to 

 to be of different contour — shrunken or 

 crenated — owing probably to pathological 

 changes going on in the blood itself, and 

 Gulliver has made the interesting discovery 

 that in the corpuscles of the Mexican deer 

 curious forms present themselves, some 

 being pointed and flattened at the ends, 

 while others become so contorted as to 

 resemble caraway seeds. Another curious 

 phenomenon worthy of notice is that they 

 tend to unite together by their surfaces like 

 so many coins heaped on top of one another, 

 and this appears to go on in the living body 



