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hence it is that we know how the fry have fared during the past nine or ten months-the period representing their age. A visit to an establishment like that of the Midland Counties Fish-Culture Establishment, at Malvern Wells, Worcestershire, is the means of affording more practical information in the space of an hour than we could possibly gather, by dint of much exertion, in open waters during a period occupying, perhaps, several months. Indeed, it is impossible to ascertain the truth of certain ichthyological matters unless investigations be carried on under semi-artificial circumstances, whereby the objects of study are always accessible.

When I last visited the Establishment referred to, in the early part of last summer, the young trout and salmon fry, hatched out during January and February of the present year, were about two inches in length, now they measure six inches. But it must not be thought that all the young fish have achieved similar dimensions to that mentioned. Like all other animals, fish vary greatly in size, and while one yearling trout may be seven inches long there are not a few that attain to only two inches at that period of their existence. It is possible that the difference in the rate of growth is more marked among fish than other animals. However this may be, we cannot but recognise in this diversity the fact that it forms part of the system which Nature provides against over-population of waters. As it is, the smaller fish are preyed upon by the larger; and the fish-culturist knows only too well that unless he steps in at the juncture of affairs, when the fish reared by him are old enough to obey their instincts and fall upon the smaller and weaker of their congeners, he will lose a large proportion of them and thus become defeated in his endeavours to outdo Nature. He, therefore, adopts the course of isolating the larger fish, first sorting them into sizes, and the dire effects of cannibalism are thereby frustrated.

The process of sorting the fish was recently carried out before me and others, by Mr. Burgess, the owner of the Establishment mentioned, and afforded me great interest. All the "nursery" ponds, in which the young fish have been reared during the spring and summer, were subjected to a thorough examination and minute inspection. The plan adopted was to draw the water off from each pond, leaving only sufficient for the fish to inhabit during the investigation. And here, let me say, that cach pond is so constructed as to be quite independent of the other, so that the water can be drawn off from any one habitat without interfering with those adjoining it, and without occasioning a cessation of the watersupply. While the water is running away from the pond, and its volume grows less and less, it is interesting to note the behaviour of the fish, which exhibit a certain amount of excitement and much activity, as the water leaves them. Their efforts to go with the stream, which gushes forth from the

waste-pipes, are frantic but ineffectual, as are also their subsequent endeavours to hide from view and enshroud themselves in holes and corners in their dread of being launched into our element, which is equally fatal to them as theirs is to us. But Mr. Burgess's arrangements are so made that the fish are never totally deprived of water, and while the operation of sorting them is in progress, they are well provided for and their physical condition carefully watched, so that not a single death ever occurs. As the fish are presented to view when the water partially flows away, we are enabled to inspect them closely, and as we do so, we marvel that in so short a space of time they have grown so rapidly. But on examining the water closely we note the cause of it, inasmuch as it is alive with all kinds of animate food upon which the fish have built themselves up. The operation of sorting over, and the smaller fish having been removed from destruction, the water is re-admitted, to the great satisfaction of the fish remaining in the pond. The other ponds are similarly treated till they have all been overhauled, and their occupants weeded out and accommodated with habitats corresponding with their size. It is doubtless more convenient to maintain them according to age, but it will be seen that, owing to the wide diversity of growth, such a course is incompatible with the principles of fish-culture. It is believed by the uninitiated that all fry are of corresponding size when they emerge from the ova. This is a great error. To begin with, the eggs are of different sizes, and it will be seen on examining the alevins that there is a remarkable difference also in their dimensions. . Without doubt food and other conditions of habitat tend to influence their growth, and therefore it does not follow that because an alevin commences its career at a size below the ordinary standard, it remains a dwarf, any more than a full-sized one will develop into a big fish if the conditions necessary to its prosperity are absent. Again, fry may become weak, and therefore less able to seek and obtain food, and in this way be prevented from thriving; or they may suffer from a paucity of food at the outset of their careers, just when they have absorbed their self-contained sac, and in consequence of this never

recover.

Judging by the results produced at fish-cultural establishments, the past spring and summer have been very favourable to fish-rearing; and the satisfactory reports made by fish-breeders as to the health, fine growths and absence of disease among their Salmonidæ confirm this opinion.

ICHTHYOLOGIST.

THE Christmas Lectures to juveniles will this year be on "Life in Motion, or the Animal Machine" (experimentally illustrated), and will be delivered by Professor John G. McKendrick, M.D., F.R.S., the professor of physiology in the University of Glasgow.

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forming the basal side of the discal cell should be continued in a straight line till it meets the next vein (the postical).

Fig. 149 is wrongly named Rhyphus. This genus was correctly illustrated before, on page 37 (Fig. 26), and Fig. 149 is a diagram of the wing of Tipula, L.

As the diagrams of wings have been scattered through the article without regard to the letterpress relating to the families they represented, it may be as well to give a full list of them in their proper order.

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I

EUROPEAN BUTTERFLIES.

PAID a visit to the Continent last summer, for the purpose of obtaining some of the rarer species of butterflies for my collection of European Rhopalocera, and though I was not so successful as I had hoped to be, a few notes about my captures may perhaps interest some of your readers.

My first stopping-place was Coblence, where I arrived about the middle of May.

I went there chiefly in the hope of again seeing Orchis hircina, a plant which I found there ten or twelve years ago, but which, although I have always since been on the look-out for it, I have never seen elsewhere.

I was, however, entirely unsuccessful in my search for it, although I went over the old ground day after day for a week it had evidently been extirpated.

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The only at all rare orchis which I saw was militaris, of which, however, I found no more than two or three plants.

As to butterflies, they were few and far between. Napi, Cardamines and Egeria, with some Brassica, comprising nearly all the species I met with.

This was in all probability owing partly to the lateness of the season, and in part to the great abundance of rain that fell whilst I was there.

My next stopping-place was Heidelberg. I went there chiefly in the hope of getting larvæ of Euphorbia. These occur in great abundance on the right bank of the Neckar, just below the town. I was not successful, however, in my searches, as there was not a single caterpillar to be seen up to the 14th of June, when I left for Freiburg (in Baden), though in some seasons I have found them more than half-grown on that date, and I once had plenty of pupa by the first week in July, and the imago out by the middle of that month. Crategi was just coming when I was leaving. Galatea, generally abundant-as it is almost everywhere—was, however, nowhere to be seen, nor were Podalirius, Ilia, Pruni, Sibylla, Virgauriæ or Arion, though in ordinary seasons I should have found all of them more or less plentiful. My captures comprised Machaon (very fine), Aurinia (taken on first emerging, and therefore perfect). Hyale apparently just out of the chrysalis-I cannot help thinking these must have hybernated as pupæ—and a very fine lot of Paniscus, an insect that was to be seen almost everywhere in the woods. In addition to the above, I got three very fine specimens of the pretty Arcania, one or two Cinxia, and a single Athalia; this last was just emerging as I was leaving. It follows Aurinia and Euphrosyne on a rough, damp meadow lying quite in the forest behind Ziegelhausen.

By the way, curiously enough, there are in this meadow quite a number of plants of that almost typical Alpine plant Arnica montana. Aurinia and Athalia-and indeed Euphrosyne too-occur here in great profusion when they are in season. They are

followed by Aglacia, which is more abundant at this spot than any other place that I know of. Paphia, too, occurs, but more sparingly, and is more confined to the forest paths.

The larvae of Rhamni was plentiful everywhere. I took a few, from which I obtained some fine specimens for my cabinet. The beautiful moth Tau was plentiful in the woods, and dashed about in its apparently reckless flight in all directions.

I went to Freiburg, in the expectation of getting Rutilus-the continental form of the extinct Disparat New Breisach (about twelve miles distant), where, according to Kane, it is abundant at the proper seasons, which are nominally early in June and August; but in June I totally failed in my object, owing, I have no doubt, to the lateness of the season. In September, however, I managed to catch about two dozen of this pretty little insect, and in fact I found three caterpillars feeding on the great waterdock (R. hydrolapathum)—the food-plant of Dispar; these pupated safely; but to my great regret the box which contained them was thrown down by accident, and two in consequence came out crippled, the third, however, was a very perfect male. Rutilus is at its best a sorry representative of the type, the extinction of which is a fact ever to be lamented by English Lepidopterists. Dispar was a far finer insect both as to size and depth of colour than any other European Polyommatus with which I am acquainted.

When at Freiburg in June, I found Echine in profusion in a grassy road alongside a damp wood, a mile or two west of the town. They were generally settled on the ground in large flocks of from fifty to a hundred; they flew up on being approached, but soon alighted again and in companies as before. They were in the finest possible condition, and I got a good series of perfect specimens.

Galatea and Crategi were also plentiful, as were also many other commoner species. I got one good example of Argiades, the only specimen of that insect I ever saw alive, and one Dictynna.

In September I got a few Prorsa, and a good series of the female of Dorilis, one being a nice variety. I also saw at New Breisach a few Daplidice, and a good many Comma; Machaon, too, was fairly plentiful, and I secured one shattered specimen of Circe, and saw a second, which escaped my net by flying across a river that I could not ford. Circe is a very fine and striking-looking insect, some specimens are as much as three inches and a quarter in expanse of wing. The contrast of the pure white band on the black ground-colour of the wings, renders it a very conspicuous object when flying.

At the end of the third week in June, I moved on to Neuchatel, in the woods above which place I hoped to find Ilia. In this I was altogether unsuccessful, as I did not see a single specimen of that butterfly.

I was evidently too soon for it in such a backward

season. I, however, obtained a fine series of Semiargus and of Lycaon, and a few Hippothoë-these in a meadow at Chaumont, about 2,400 feet above Neuchatel-a few Apollos, two or three Athalias and Cinxias, and a Carthemi or two. I saw numbers of Machaon and of Galatea, Hyale, and Cratægi, as well as many other common species.

The woods above the town were full of the finest spikes of the orchis H. bifolia I ever had the good fortune to see, and I found nine plants of C. grandiflora in the same woods, the average number of flowers on a spike being, in this case, six (vide SCIENCEGOSSIP 1890, p. 92).

I must not omit to mention that when at Neuchatel, I made an excursion by steamer to the picturesque town of Morat, and that when the boat was passing through the river which unites the two lakes, a beautiful example of the Squacco heron, E. ralloides, flew up out of some reeds in a marshy meadow close by, and as it flew in a sort of halfcircle round the boat at a distance of about seventy or eighty yards, it afforded me a fine opportunity of making a leisurely inspection of its beauty.

On the whole I had been unfortunate up to this time, as I had not obtained at any of the places named what I had gone there for. Better luck, however, awaited me at Zermatt and Berisal, but I must postpone the particulars of my captures at those places to another occasion, if you, Mr. Editor, will give me space in a future number of your paper for some further notes.

Eastbourne.

R. B. P.

THE RECORD IN ZONITES.

It was at little Kentish village where I had drifted

T was indeed a lovely hot afternoon last summer

during a conchological walking-tour. Giving myself and the snails a rest, I strolled into the cool old flint church, with twelve other people. I wandered into an old square pew, shut the door and settled down in one corner. In its appointed place the sermon began. I am sorry I cannot say what the subject of the discourse was, for a very large hornet would inspect me all over, humming so loud that I heard not the words of the preacher, and finally it settled on my knee. Quickly I was reaching for a large bible in the corner, wherewith to slay it, when a voice at my elbow said in an undertone, "Do you want any very large Zonites?"

Somehow I was not surprised at the presence of a stranger in the closed pew, or his knowing that I certainly did covet very large Zonites.

"How large?" I inquired mechanically.

"Oh, I will show you some as big as any silver coin you have, provided, of course, I keep the coin. I quietly produced a shilling.

"Pooooh!" He seemed to swell with contempt. I hastily produced a florin.

"That's better," replied he, with apparently diminishing bulk; "that will do for Cellarius, but if it comes to Glaber, I ask gold!"

My eagerness and rashness expanded. I whispered loudly, "I will give you a new £5 piece, if you will cover it with a Glaber of equal size."

Now this was wrong of me, I know, for I had not got such a thing, but somehow it seemed all right then. He quietly rose, and we guiltily glided down the aisle, out of the door (my hand clutching his arm), till he paused under the old yew-tree.

"Under this stone," said he ; and I at once knelt down and began to struggle with an old mossy headstone which had apparently lain a century undisturbed.

But before I could effect my purpose, he put his foot on it, as if by accident, saying:

"You will, doubtless, be interested to hear that I have just published a list of names for the band varieties of H. pisana."

"Indeed!" said I, "that seems a great many. Why, the various combinations of seventeen bands and their omissions and coalitions must amount to several millions!

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He (impatiently), "Yes, of course it does,"

I (astonished and fumbling at the stone), "Where did you get the names from?"

He (airily), "Oh, I named them after my conchological friends and correspondents. There's Jonesii and Brownii and-"

"I am almost afraid," interrupted I, "that we shall hardly get to the end of the list of your rather numerous friends before they come out of church." "And," continued he complacently, "I am about to publish a new list of the six hundred true species of British Pisidia with their numerous varieties." "But," protested I, "Jeffreys says—” He (loftily), "I never heard of him."

I (pityingly), "Well, it is time you did. He

wrote "

He (more loftily still), "I never read what people write."

I (angrily), "Go and read Jeffreys before you presume-"

He (angrily, and showing signs of inflation), "Jeffreys be—"

I (wrathfully), "Sir! I'll thank you to speak respectfully of the learned Dr. !"

He (with rapidly increasing bulk), "I say Jeffreys be-"

He never finished the sentence, with a mighty tug I wrenched up the ponderous stone and smote him with it Eugene-Aram fashion. He fell beneath it, collapsing like a catcall bladder and giving out much the same sound as that instrument. I had killed him. "Never mind the windbag," thought I, "have I broken any of the Zonites?;

I stooped down and looked. There they were; large as the Algirus, but smooth and glistening! Cellarius, Glaber, and, oh joy! a pale green Radiatulus as large as a florin, with the regular closeset striæ resplendent! A box-of course I had come without one on Sunday! Happy thought, my pouch! I emptied the tobacco hurriedly over the collapsed corpse and reached eagerly for the prey. Hark! a rustling! They must be coming out of church; "And now-"

Dear friends, if that sermon had only lasted two seconds longer I should have broken the record in British Zonites.

L. E. ADAMS.

SCIENCE-GOSSIP.

AT the Entomological Society of London on the 4th November, Dr. D. Sharp, F.R.S., VicePresident in the chair, Mr. Frederick Enock gave a most interesting account of the life-history of Atypus piceus-the British representative of the Trap-door Spiders-though it does not make a true trap-door nest, but excavates a hole into the sand, lining it with silk, the aerial portion of a mature nest protruding above ground about two to three inches. This purse-like nest is the work of years, the newlyemerged baby spiderling making a tiny tube one sixteenth of an inch in diameter and one inch longincreasing it in drain and length as it increases in size, until it sometimes reaches fifteen inches in length.

The anatomy of the creature was carefully and fully described, the purpose of the vertical movement of the huge jaws and fangs being clearly shown, and the extraordinary ingenuity displayed in obtaining its food for no sooner does a fly alight on the outside than the fact is communicated to the spider at the bottom by setting the vertical lines or threads in motion, the spider stealthily ascends until exactly underneath the fly, when with lightning-like rapidity it drives its long fangs through the sand-covered tube and into the fly, which it quickly drags right through and down to the bottom of its nest, where it quietly sucks it dry, ascending again in a few minutes to repair and cover in the rent. The interesting courtship of the male was explained, and the domestic economy, finishing up with the tragedy of the female killing her partner, sucking him dry, and then throwing his dried-up skin out of the nest.

Every detail in the life-history of this spider was most elaborately illustrated by a very large number of exquisite photographs made by Mr. Enock from his original drawings. The effect when shown by the oxy-hydrogen, lantern was most striking, many of the movements of the spider being shown in a most realistic manner.

WE are pleased to draw the attention of our readers to Messrs. Dulau and Co's new Catalogue of Zoological and Paleontological Works.

THE second largest electric lighting installation in Liverpool has been put in Messrs. Henechsberg and Ellis's, University House, Islington, by Messrs A. Hall & Co. of that city. The shop is lighted by 140 glow lamps; the windows are fitted with electroliers, and the turret is surmounted by a twenty-ampere arc lamp, which is visible from the Welsh mountains, and will form a beacon-light for shipping entering the Mersey.

AN amusing controversy has been taking place in the Manchester City News, respecting the alleged virtue of "Halvivi," as a specific against seasickness.

FROM various parts of Great Britain, we have received notes of the unusual lateness of the swallows in leaving us this year. Sometimes these swallows are martins !

ON November 30th, in the large hall of the Athenæum, Bury St. Edmunds, under the presidency of Earl Cadogan, K.G., Dr. J. E. Taylor, editor of SCIENCE GOSSIP, gave an illustrated lecture to a large audience "On the Probability of finding Coal in East Anglia." It is at Culford, on Earl Cadogan's estate, near Bury, that the supposed primary rocks have been struck at the comparatively small depth of 640 feet.

WE confess to a weakness for second-hand book catalogues and for old books generally. Messrs. Pickering and Chatto's last "Book Lover's Leaflet" is one of the most delightful and novel of the series they have yet issued.

FOR ordinary nervous toothache, which is caused by the nervous system being out of order or by excessive fatigue, a very hot bath will so soothe the nerves that sleep will naturally follow, and upon getting up, the patient will feel very much refreshed, and the toothache will be a thing of the past. For what is known as "jumping toothache," hot, dry flannel applied to the face and neck is very effective. For common toothache which is caused by indigestion, or by strong, sweet acid, or anything very hot or cold in a decayed tooth, a little piece of cotton steeped in strong camphor, or oil of cloves, is the best remedy.

MICROSCOPY.

NEW SLIDES.-We have received from Mr. Ernest Hinton, 12 Vosley Road, Upper Holloway, two exceedingly beautiful and interesting preparations: the young or larval form of the pretty sea-horse

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