Page:Hardwicke's Science-Gossip - Volume 1.pdf/103

1, 1865.] (Totanus hypoleucus) fly away from my feet. I began to look for its nest, thinking it might have built a second time; but to my astonishment, I saw a young sandpiper with one leg entangled in some wool, which had stuck to a small nut-tree. I went some distance off, for the purpose of seeing it try to liberature itself. As soon as I had gone away, the old bird came back again, and fed it. Having watching it for some time, I at last walked up, and set it free, but not without some difficulty; for the wool had got so tight round its legs that it had cut it in several places, and was covered with blood; so I was obliged to use my knife to get it off. When the bird was set free, it did not fly far; but hid itself under the river's bank. I never saw my little prisoner again.—

.—Neither "" nor "" notice the comical habit which the toad has twitching his hind-toes with excitement when watching an insect he intends to eat. The frog does not do so, being much quicker in catching its prey at a distance. It leaps toward it, and throws out its tongue at the same time. I have at present four tame toads and a frog, which I should always be glad to show to any one calling. One of the toads croaks loudly whenever handled, but never dribbles now. I have also some natterjacks (Bufo calamita), from Wisley, Surrey. I shall be glad to catch and send specimens of this really handsome species to all who will write and ask.— Tate, 4, Grove-place, Denmark-hill, Camberwell.

.—The stormy petrel (Porcellaria pelegica, L.) is the smallest of the web-fotted birds, is very light, and but little larger than a wren; but the egg she lays is the largest, for the size of the bird, of any of the feathered race, being 1 of an inch long, of an inch in diameter. She lays two eggs, which are pure white, and full as large as a pigeon's egg, in the fissures of the rocks on the rocky isles, near the coast, in almost inaccessible places.—, St. Ives, Cornwall.

.—In a circular just insued, the Entomological Society of London announces its anxiety especially to devote attention to economic entomology, and requests the support of agriculturists and horticulturists, and of all who are interested in the habits and economy of insects, and the best modes of cultivating the useful and destroying the noxious species. The council has offered two prizes, of the value of five guineas each, to be awarded, at the end of the present year, to the authors of essays or memoirs of sufficient merit on subjects belonging to the economic department of the science.

.—On the 19th of March, last year, a man brought a live badger to Wycombe, which he had dug out the previous night. It was a very fine one; he sold it for ten shillings to a gentleman, who has it now. I have a fine badger's skull that was dug up three years ago in our cemetery with several other bones.—Henry Ullyett.

.—On the 9th of July last I found a linnet's nest with a cuckoo's egg in it. Is not this unusual, the linnet being a hard-billed bird? The spots on the egg were very light, corroborating the opinion of a friend of mine, who believes the cuckoo's eggs to be light or dark in shade, according to the nest in which they are laid.—Henry Ullyett.

.—I have had several eggs brought me, said to be those of yellow bunting, totally destitute of colour. These were always laid very late in the season, and this may serve to bear out the remark of Mr. Gregson, quoted in the February number. Two white eggs were once brought in the nest, which I believe to be those of wheatear. This was late in the year, too.—Henry Ullyett.

.—M. Guérin-Meneville presented a note to the Academy of Sciences, Paris, recently, on a new sub-genus of Bombycides producing silk—the Saturnia Bauhiniæ, Guér., an inhabitant of Senegal, for which M. Guérin proposes to found a new sub-genus under the name of Faidherbia, in honour of General Faidherbe, the commander of the French military expeditions in the district of the Senegal, through whose instrumentality the silk-producing qualities of the insect have been made known. Each cocoon contains 633 milligrammes of silk, those of the common silkworm containing only 290, and those of the silkworms of the ailanthus and ricinus only 255 and 175 respectively. It is proposed to introduce the cultivation of this silkworm into Algeria.—The Reader.

.—In the article about the man-sucker (Octopus), I find the author does not mention (which I have often seen) that the Indians, after catching the creature, will eat it raw with great gusto; and when I have been out all day shooting with them it has been brought with them raw as their luncheon. There is also another sea (I do not know whether to call it animal or fish—at any rate) creature, about as long and as thick as my arm, which has no power of volition, but sticks to the rocks by suckers; these I have seen the Indians spear, and eat raw, with the sea-water, with which they are filled, running down their beards.—

To the attentive eye, each moment of the year has its own beauty, and in the same field it beholds every hour, a picture which was never seen before, and which shall never be seen again.—Emerson.