Page:Hardwicke's Science-Gossip - Volume 1.pdf/58

42

.—Last year I procured a wasps' nest by placing equal parts of gunpowder and sulphur into the hole, covering the top with a sod, applying a match, and thus rendering the inmates harmless for a time. I then dug out the nest whole and placed it with its insensible inmates on a board, covering the nest over with a bell-glass sufficiently raised by four thin wedges of wood to admit air, and to enable me with a wire to clean away any refuse dead wasps, &c., but not high enough to allow any of the wasps to escape. I then fed them every morning with sugar, and thus kept them till the first week in November, when, I regret to say, I cleared them away. During the last few days only nine of them appeared, and these only in the middle of the day; in the morning and night they either disappeared into the nest, or clung to the outside and appeared quite dormant. It would be very interesting to watch them through the winter and on the return of spring. I shall endeavour to do so this year. Perhaps some of your readers will do the same. By the way, can you tell me how it is that there are no wasps in London?—J. E.

.—My present residence, an old country house, was neither infested with cockroaches nor crickets until very lately. The cockroaches made their appearance about four years ago, and increased so rapidly and to such an extent that every night the kitchen-floor was black with them when the candle had been out about an hour. They made their way into every place, and although we tried every means to kill them they seemed to increase the faster, as if in mockery of our efforts. During last winter the chirp of the cricket was heard by the fire-side, and they increased from the solitary one to a full and noisy chorus, and as they increased the cockroaches decreased, and now (August) there is not a cockroach to be found. It has long been one of the articles of "folk-lore" that the two will not live together, and here is a proof. A neighbour of mine, a large farmer, has lost the crickets and is pestered with the cockroaches, which live and increase in spite of shoe-heel, traps, poppy-leaves, elder-leaves, or beetle-poison.—J. Ranson, York.

.—Fourteen young specimens of a new edible fish (Silrus glanis) have been recently imported from Wallachia, for the purpose of introducing them into the waters of this country.

.—The report recently published states that the late spawning season is the best that has been known in the Stormontfield ponds since their establishment ten years ago. Up to the 22nd of December last, upwards of 300,000 salmon eggs had been deposited in the breeding-boxes, and the ponds were swarming with young salmon hatched in March and April last. The average length of time required at Stormontfield for salmon eggs to ripen into fish is 120 days. It has also been ascertained beyond doubt that a smolt of a year old going down to the sea may return in a few months as a grilse of four pounds' weight, while its brother and sister fish which have not visited the sea remain tiny pairs of about half-an-ounce weight. The various stages of development at Stormontfield appear to take place at the following dates. An egg deposited in the ponds about Christmas comes to life in April, remains a parr until about April the following year, when, being seized with its migratory instinct, it departs for the sea. If recaptured in July it has become a grilse, weighting about four pounds, and if again set free and recaptured at a later period it will be a salmon weighing ten or twelve pounds. Upwards of a million of pond-bred fish have now been set at liberty in the Tay, and the result has been a satisfactory rise in the salmon rental of that fine river. The most curious speciality in connexion with the piscicultural operations at Stormontfield is the circumstance that only one-half of a brood of young salmon go down to the sea at the expiration of about a year from their birth, the others remain in the ponds a year longer, and do not become smolts until they are turned two years old. The operations at Stormontfield have been so successful that it is intended to increase the number of breeding-boxes.—Athenæum.

.—At the third annual meeting of the Acclimatisation Society of Victoria, held at Melbourne on the 11th Nov. last, Dr. F. Black reported that the salmon at Badger's Creek were going on as prosperously as could be wished. Dr. Officer, a visitor from Tasmania, gave a long account of the salmon and trout in Tasmania, hatched from ova sent there by the Acclimatisation Society, which were going on exceedingly well. There were about 4,000 salmon and 300 trout; and the former were expected to be on their return trip from the ocean in a twelvemonth. So far the experiment has been perfectly successful. Arrangements have been made to obtain a fresh supply of salmon ova from England.—W. J. S.

.—I kept some govies for a length of time in a salt-water aquarium, and used to feed them with bread-crumbs, which I dropped into the water a few at a time. In a short time the govies quite recognized us when we came near the aquarium, and would all swim at once to the side, and they were so tame that they would take the bread from my fingers, and even jump out of the water to get it. After I had had them some little time they began to breed, and attached their eggs to the side of the aquarium in the same kind of way in which a caterpillar affixes its egg to a leaf. Then the male goby at once set-to to guard, and it was very amusing to watch how fiercely he wouldd attack any creature coming near, puffing his cheeks out in a curious manner. He constantly attached himself by his pectoral fins close to the eggs, or kept swimming near them. Unfortunately none were hatched, as the crabs and periwinkles were too much for them, and devoured them, though there were several batches of eggs laid. I am sorry to say, that having to leave home, the aquarium was neglected and spoilt, since which time I have not renewed it. I see some govies are said to build nests; but they must be of a different species.—E. J. S.