286 
NATURALISTS CALENDAR. 
a sage leaf is like a white rug or -shag, full of knots tasselled with white 
silver thrums, having one or two fine round crystal beads or pendants, as big as 
peas, fastened to every knot. Look at the back side of a nettle leaf, and you 
w'ill see it full of needles, or rather long sharp transparent pikes, every needle 
having a crystal pummel, presenting the appearance of a sword-cutler’s shop, 
full of glittering drawn swords, tucks and daggers. Of a similar appearance are 
the prickles of borage leaves and stalks.— ib. 
Molluscous Animals. —Almost every little slowly running stream, where the 
water is clear and the bottom soft, abounds with one or more of the Limneus 
pereger. (5) The varieties of this species differ both in size and colour, but the 
prevailing colours are dull yellow wdth a bluish-black tint at the spire. Occa¬ 
sionally the Mysca (Mya) Batava (6) may be found in some of our small rivers, 
but is far from common. The river Kennet appears to be the most prolific place 
for them, particularly just above the town of Newbury, in Berkshire. The shell 
is about one inch long, and two inches broad, of a greenish-brown outside, and 
dark-blue within. The Bulimus decollatus (7) is about an inch long, and hardly 
so much wide ; its colour is yellowish-white or rather inclining to browm. The 
top appears as though it had been violently broken off, but this is discovered 
not to be the effect of accident, but natural to every individual of this species. 
They are land animals rarely to be met with. 
36 
Birds most, if not all our summer visitors, arrived eaily in May. Even the 
fly-catcher and swift are with us, whose early appearance in the north is proba¬ 
bly ow'ing to the very delightful weather we have experienced during the past 
month. The greater part of them are now breeding, many of the residents, hav¬ 
ing already reared one brood of young ones, are proceeding with a second, wdiilst 
others, as the bulfinch, &c. are but just beginning to build. From what cause 
does this disparity arise ? Can it be, that the food with which the bulfinch and 
other lam breeding birds feed their young does not come to maturity until late 
in the season ? 
