NOTES xiND QUERIES EXCHANGE. 



21 



ground as it does on tlie Continent. In 

 autumn it is covered with its pendulous 

 red fruits. It is near akin to the hawthorn, 

 and others of the Pomacese. On the same 

 ledge of rock I found the Thalictrum fl.ex- 

 uosum and Veronica hyhrida. The Hen- 

 bane ( Hyoscyamus niger) seems perma- 

 nently abundant at Llandudno. It is one 

 of the Solan eoe, and like the Nightshade, it 

 has a forbidding aspect. The flowers are 

 buff -coloured, pencilled with lurid purple, 

 and blotched with the same colour in the 

 throat. The smell to some people is not 

 unlike that of the leaves of the black-cur- 

 rant, and it acts slightly as a narcotic. — 

 Peter Inchbald, Storthes Hall, April 

 16th, 1865. 



Beason and Instinct. — Huxley "(Man's 

 place in Nature,") seems if I understand 

 him correctlj^, to suggest that articulate 

 speech differs but in degree, from the mode 

 of communication in use among our hairy 

 cousins, and to agree with the writer of 

 Ecclesiastes that there is no essential differ- 

 ence between ' ' the spirit of man that goeth 

 upward, and the spirit of a beast that goeth 

 downward." The mystery of life is the 

 same in both cases at any rate. The accu- 

 mulating power of knowledge possessed by 

 man is relied on by many, but when you go 

 down to Bosjesmen or Andaman Islanders, 

 where is this power ? How much do they 

 advance in a hundred generations ? Or, do 



they advance at all in the sense meant ? Not 

 so much as some animals do. For example : 

 European bees were brought out to South 

 America ; went in lively for honey and no 

 mistake — first .year, good store — second, 

 ditto — third, the bees found out there Avas 

 no winter — fourth year, declined altogether 

 making any accumulation, eat the honey 

 when they chose, and went out to gather 

 more. Is that reason or are we to shirk 

 the question by calling it instinct ? In no 

 intelligible sense does this differ from rea- 

 son — inductive reasoning, in fact, as good 

 as if they had studied the Novum Organum. 

 Yerily, there is some greater fact behind 

 all existence than we wot of — Henry 

 BiRCHALL, Bogota, January 14, 1865. 



Early Mushrooms. — Yesterday during a 

 walk with a friend, we gathered eighteen 

 fine mushrooms, ( Agaricus campestris ) ; is 

 not this an extraordinary circumstance at 

 this early season. — J. North, Newsome, 

 near Huddersfield, May 8, 1865. 



I have in duplicate a good series of Pal- 

 udina Listeri and Unio Pictorum. Any 

 Conchologist being in want of a few of the 

 above, can be supplied by paying carriage. 

 — Sydney Smith, Church, near Accrington. 



l!^"OTES Olsr THE MUSTELID^ OF J^TOETHUMBERLAND. 

 ISTo. II : — The Badgee. (Meles Taxus.) 



BY T. H. GIBB. 



So rare has this quiet and innoxious animal "become in I^Tortliumberland 

 during tlie last twenty-five years that tlie appearance of one now is marked 

 as a thing of note and is hailed with no small degree of pleasure by all true 



