174 
NATURE NOTES 
It causes the heart of a Selbornian to rejoice in visiting spots like this where 
so many interesting creatures are protected from the rapacity and thoughtlessness 
of man. 
Edmund Thos. Daubeny. 
148. A Flying Fish in an Engine Room. — A flying fish, twelve 
inches long and fifteen inches across the wings, fell into the engine room of the 
American Line Steamer “ Philadelphia,” during the last homeward passage from 
New York to Southampton. All the passengers had retired for the night, and 
the fish was, no doubt, attracted by the lights that were burning in the engine 
room. Flying through the open door on the main deck, it fell upon the iron 
grating of the first platform, just above the engineer on watch, who found that 
one of its eyes had been lost in the fall. The fish has been preserved by the 
chief engineer of the “ Philadelphia.” 
149. Humming in the Air. — I was on the Malvern Hills about a month 
ago with a companion, and several times when walking in parts sheltered from 
the wind, we noticed the humming in the air very loud. The first time my friend 
thought she had put her foot into a wild bees’ nest. As far as I could see, and 
one day I lay for two hours enjoying the hum and the lovely view, the authors of 
the hum were bees or large insects, and the note of the hum was a very loud one, 
denoting large insects, about middle C. Gnats, and the smaller insects, of which 
there were plenty near the ground, would have made a much shriller sound. 
Evidently the insects did not like wind, for wherever that was strong, there was 
no hum. 
The swifts were very actively employed, coming close to our heads or so low 
that we could see their shadows on the grass ; there was evidently plenty of food 
for them and their fry, for the grass was covered with the white bedstraw, wild 
thyme, and the other minute flowers common to such localities. 
I may be wrong, but it seems to me that everyivhere in the summer the air is 
full of that delicious humming ; perhaps more so this year than usually, as all the 
flowering shrubs and plants are very full of bloom. 
M. S. Young. 
150. Cuckoo Spit. — -A cutting from 77re has been sent me in whioh 
it is said that “when a pheasant chick swallowed the insect alive the result was 
invariably fatal. When the insect is swallowed without being killed, the crop of 
the bird soon fills with spit. For some two or three hours the bird gasps for 
breath, and in the end is choked, not poisoned.” This is an ancient belief and 
common too, but until proved by experiment should be looked upon as im- 
probable, to say the very least. In “Agricultural Entomology,” by the late Miss 
Ormerod, it is stated that the cuckoo-spit insect or froghopper “is to be found 
in its two first stages on many plants in a mass of froth which it has caused 
. . . . not by biting, but by suction. The upper and under pairs of jaws are 
lengthened into long bristle-like growths, and enclosed in the lengthened lower 
lip. The whole apparatus forms a kind of beak, by means of which the insect 
pierces the soft parts of the plants on which it feeds, and draws out the juices.” 
The amount of moisture thus drawn is so great that, after passing through the 
body of the insect as through a sieve, it is deposited in the well-known form of 
froth, forming a covering and protection against enemies. The insect is far too 
tender and easily crushed to continue to exist after being picked up and swallowed 
by a bird. Pheasants are granivorous, with a gastric juice and gizzard that soon 
reduce to pulp the food on which they feed. If a seed is ground up by a process 
almost as thorough as that of a millstone, how can the froghopper escape death ? 
The correspondent of The Field, however, states not only “ that it is swallowed 
without being killed,” but also that the crop of the bird soon fills with spit.” Where 
does the spit come from ? In the bird’s digestive organs the froghopper no longer 
has a plant from which to draw supplies of froth, and no insect of its size could 
store in its body a twentieth part of the spit that surrounds it on a plant, much 
less could it produce sufficient to cause a bird to “ gasp for breath,” and in “ the 
end be choked ” from being “ filled with spit.” When next spring comes it will 
be easy to put the matter to the test. A good sized plant of garden lavender will 
afford a supply of froghoppers, which, if given to a chick or two, will settle the 
