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 .—I would in answer to T.'s enquiry (page 80) as to the best methods of preserving fish refer him for full directions to Mr. Montagu Brown's useful manual entitled "Practical Taxidermy," (Bazaar Office, London.)—F.

.—We have had two instances at Highfield House of cocks taking to chickens. In 1837 a Dorking hen died leaving some young chickens, which a Dorking cock took charge of, brooding them like a hen, and rearing the whole number. Last year, (1877) a Duck-wing Bantam cock sat on a single egg, hatched a chicken. brooded it as a hen, and altered his voice in the peculiar tone of a hen with chickens, exhibiting as much care of the chicken us would have been the case with a hen, and attacking in a savage manner anything that came too near the little one.—E. J..

—In reply to C. T. M's request (p. 79, ante) that some of your readers would describe the best method of preserving Fungi, I would refer him to the following sources of information, in either of which he will find all he can possibly require. The authors are practical Mycologists of the highest standing, and nothing can be added to the admirable instructions they give on this subject:—"The Outlines of British Fungology," by the Rev. M. J. Berkeley, a work indispensable to the student of fungi on account of the admirable plates, contains a chapter on the subject; as does also that excellent little work, "Cooke and Berkeley's Fungi: Their Nature, Influences, and Use." Mr. Worthington G. Smith contributed several chapters to "Hardwick's Science Gossip" for 1872, which are evidently the result of his own large experience. If C. J. M. will allow me I would strongly recommend to him what I have found of great value in my own case, namely, to make careful drawings of each species he collects to accompany the dried specimen. So many of the characteristic features of the larger Hymenomycetes pass away in drying that it requires considerable experience to make out a species from herbarium specimens, unaided by drawings, and hence the very general adaption of the practice I recommend among Fungologists.—WILLIAM PARRIS, Shrewsbury.

.— The banks of the roads and lanes in South Devon are in many places for long distances covered with primroses. They often vary in colour, from the ordinary yellow to pure white, both on the sunny and shaded banks. Several of the white varieties were collected last spring, and planted in a garden in good rich soil. This year they have all bloomed freely and the blossoms were of the same pure white colour. In an orchard of the same district, where there were a great number of primroses in blossom beneath the trees, the blossoms of two plants looked like double flowers and one plant had the appearance of a polyanthus with primrose blossoms. The plants were removed and planted in the garden last spring. They all present the same peculiar aspect. Some perfect flowers have appeared, and upon the same plant flowers with the calyces containing five petals, two united by the stalk of the petal, and the three others are separate, (on one stem.) The same polyanthus-looking blossoms are coming out, and on one of the plants are pure double blossoms. Red-coloured primroses are common on the banks of the Teign. It has not fallen to my lot to notice such variety in the colour of primroses, in either Breconshire, Monmouthshire, Herefordshire. or Gloucestershire; and in no instances has a double primrose or one so deformed as above described been seen by me in a wild state before, and far removed from garden grounds, It is very common to meet with double-flowered cuckoo plants in Devonshire, and double-blossomed dwarfed brambles are common. especially in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire.—, Stroud.