24 
THE MUSEUM. 
very curious ways during the season of breeding. 
The females hardly ever lay their complement of 
eggs at first, but commence sitting after a few have 
been deposited, and just as these are ready to hatch, 
others are extruded, and thus the early young are 
partially relied upon for assistance in the duty of 
incubation. Nests are often found with young birds 
of moderate size alongside of eggs in various stages 
of development. 
Interesting as these facts are, they are less so than 
the case of parasitism which I shall now relate. 
The party concerned was the black-billed cuckoo, 
and the crime was that of laying in the nest of her 
nearest cousin, whose home is often in close prox¬ 
imity to her own. This occurrence took place in the 
summer of 1883, and the credit of having made the 
discovery is due H. K. Jameson, of Manayunk, Pa. 
Being an amateur collector of little experience, he 
was not aware of the importance of his discovery, 
but merely supposed that he had met with a nest of 
Coccygus Americanus with a full setfing of eggs. 
The number in the nest was five, three being larger 
and more elliptical than the others, and of a light 
greenish-blue, rather than of a bluish-green, color. 
On seeing the eggs, the writer had no hesitancy in 
pronouncing the smaller as those of C. erythroph- 
thalmus , and the larger as those of Americanus. 
There can be no doubt as to the ownership of the 
nest, for the male and female of the latter species 
were in undisputed possession. Both nest and eggs 
are now in my collection. —Thomas G. Gentry. 
An instance of compulsory (?) parasitism occurred 
a few years ago near the town of Parlcesburgh, Pa. 
A nest of the meadow lark was found, containing 
five eggs, three of which were of ordinary size, and 
nearly ready to hatch. The remaining two were of 
larger size, much brighter in color, perfectly fresh, 
and had evidently been deposited by a different in¬ 
dividual. It is supposed that the recently laid eggs 
had been deposited by a bird whose nest had been 
destroyed by the reapers before she had finished 
laying. Nothing remained for her to do, in this 
emergency, but to entrust her remaining eggs to the 
care of a neighbor.—E. A, Barber. 
James Turnbull, of Pastorie, Grey Town, Natal, 
records, in Nature , the discovery of a new bird be¬ 
longing to the goat-suckers. It is closely related to the- 
long shafted goat-sucker of Africa, the length of 
body being six inches, of a brown color. 
Botany.— A score or more of mosses, not named 
in Dr. Wm. Darlington’s Flora Cestrica, have re¬ 
cently been found in Chester county, Pa. Of these 
may be mentioned Climacium Americanum, Brid., 
Bryum ( Webera ) Lescurianum , Sull., and Leskea 
polycarpa, Ehrh. 
The Journal of Mycology , for May, contains an 
alphabetical list of 122 host-plants of the parasitic 
Cercosporce of N. A., by J. B. Ellis and Benjamin 
M. Everhart. 
Prof. J. T. Rothrock, in one of the Michaux 
lectures, delivered in Horticultural Hall, Philadel¬ 
phia, recently, stated that two species of algae had 
been discovered, living habitually on silver or other 
coin. Paper money is also known to harbor at 
least four kinds of simple fungi. 
piumtogy. 
The class in Mineralogy, at the • Philadelphia 
Academy of Natural Sciences, was taken by Prof. 
H. C. Lewis, recently, to a celebrated quarry near 
Attleborough, Pa., where occurs a remarkable out¬ 
crop of crystalline limestone. Among the species 
collected were the following: Sphene in wedge- 
shaped crystals—some of them an inch in length, 
pyroxene, crystals of brown mica or phlogopite, 
scapolite, wollastonite, graphite, white calcite, gray 
feldspar, pyrite, chalcopyrite, several varieties of 
quartz and jasper. Lancaster, Chester, Delaware, 
and some portions of Bucks, counties are particularly 
rich in minerals. 
The March number of the Hoosier Mineralogist 
and Archaeologist contains an interesting article on 
“ Limestone or Calcite as a Mineral, and Charac¬ 
teristics Thereof.” 
Theo. A. Kendall, in the Young Mineralogist and 
Antiquarian , reports the receipt of some fine, showy 
crystals of vanadanite and descloizite, from the West¬ 
ern mining country. 
The report reaches us that an emerald, weighing 
a pound, and therefore the largest known, has 
recently been found in one of the mines of Colombia. 
