Sphagnum rubellum.—Can any one send us specimens in exchange for other mosses which the querist (Z.) may possess in duplicate?
Colour of Bird's Eggs.—Will our ornithological correspondents please to observe, during the coming season, the colours and markings of birds' eggs, so as to determine whether the earliest or latest produced by the same bird are deepest in colour, or most definitely marked?
Cleaning Sections.—A correspondent (K.) has succeeded in rubbing down some thin sections of the spine of an Echinus, for the microscope, but finds himself unable to cleanse them to his satisfaction from the debris of grinding. Can any of our subscribers assist him with practical advice?
From what plants are the leaves, in which oranges are sent to our markets, obtained; also the leaves lining tea-chests; and from what tree might the pegs which bind the leaves together be derived? There is also a kind of wicker-work encasing Florence oil-flasks, the name of which I should like to know.
"I am sure," said Gentleman Waife, "that there are not two house-flies on a window-pane, two minnows in that water, that would not present to us interesting points of contrast as to temper and dispositions. If house-flies and minnows could but coin money, or set up a manufacture, contrive something, in short, to buy or sell attractive to Anglo-Saxon enterprise and intelligence, of course we should soon have diplomatic relations with them; and our despatches and newspapers would instruct us to a T in the characters and propensities of their leading personages. But where man has no pecuniary nor ambitious interests at stake in his commerce with any class of his fellow-creatures, his information about them is extremely confused and superficial. The best naturalists are mere generalizers, and think they have done a vast deal when they classify a species. What should we know of mankind if we had only a naturalist's definition of man? We only know mankind by knocking classification on the head, and studying each man as a class in himself. Compare Buffon with Shakespeare! Alas, sir, can we never have a Shakespeare for houseflies and minnows?"—Bulwer's What will he do with it?
Agardh's View of Nature.—"To me, nature appears neither a simple nor a reticulated series, but an infinite and innumerable multitude of series advancing from a lower to a higher grade, from any part of which lesser series may project like rays, some diverging more, some less, much as the trunk of a tree is divided into larger branches, these again into lesser and lesser ones, and at last into an almost infinite number of leaves. One branch of the tree becomes thick and strong, ramifies much, and reaches the top of the tree, while another remains weak, and a third may be scarcely developed at all. In determining natural affinities we must take nature as our guide in everything. It is not enough to take into consideration all the characters of the forms which we are investigating, and to develop the essence of the family from a knowledge of all the forms belonging to it. We must further seek to discover the direction of the evolution of each series, and inquire whether its forms are advancing this way or that. It is only after this has been done that we can decide to which series a plant should be referred, and whether apparent resemblances are to be considered affinities or analogies."
The Smooth Snake (Coronella lævis, Boie).—Is this a variety of the common snake? Certainly not. It belongs, not only to a different genus, but also to a different family of Colubrines. Is it a native of Britain? Perhaps it is. The published evidence is very imperfect in dates and localities. This may do for "Gossip" but not for "Science."
Origin of Sowerby's English Botany.—A letter from the son of James Sowerby, printed in 1828, gives some information which may interest those who now see that national work in its third edition. The work owed its origin to the circumstance of Mr. Sowerby having made a number of sketches of plants, to be introduced in the foregrounds of landscapes, which he was in the habit of painting from nature. These sketches were shown to various botanical friends, at whose suggestion the work was begin, with the valuable assistance of Sir J. E. Smith; and the only descriptions that were not written by that gentleman were supplied by the late Dr. Shaw. In addition to the praise due to Mr. Sowerby, for the excellence of the drawings and engravings in that work, some portion is due to him for the spirit of enterprise with which he carried it on; for, although he had to depend upon portrait-painting for the capital required, he still industriously and steadily pursued his expensive project, until it began to remunerate him (which was not for several years), and he finally brought up a numerous family to enjoy its profits, and lament the loss of one of the best of parents.
Ornithological Queries.—1st. The passage of wild geese has been lately much commented on in the Times, and from the fact of their traversing England, from high northern latitudes, by routes somewhat divergent from those generally observed locally, the correspondents of that paper have deduced the certainty of an unusually hard winter here! Query, why should such a conclusion be enunciated, when we know that these, and many other winter immigrant birds, seek yearly the milder European latitudes?—2nd. If, as travellers tell us is the case, the breeding resort of woodcocks be in the marshy districts of Finland and Lapland (where their nests are found in thousands among the dwarf birch scrub of those parts), why should these birds first make their appearance on the Devon and Cornish, and south west coast of Ireland, for, by geographical consistency, their flight, from the head of the Gulf of Bothnia, in lat. 85° N., long. 22° W., to lat. N. 50°, and long. 4° and 9° W. respectively, ought to be primarily the Lincolnshire fen-district, as they fly before the N.E. wind, on moonlight nights mostly, and must pass over that tempting feeding ground en route, if their flight be the direct track, which I imagine it to be?—3rd. Can it be proved that wild geese, woodcocks, and other northern birds alight anywhere when thus in transitu, or do they accomplish their 1,800 miles of flight (from the North Cape, that is, the geese and duck species) in a single stretch?—4th. Can any of your correspondents inform me whether the west coasts of Ireland and Scotland receive these their winter visitants from the N.N.E. or E.N.E. points of the compass, for, if Ireland and South Greenland be their habitat in summer, their flight thence, per direct N.N.W. route, might follow naturally; and they need not traverse England intermediately, as they must do by the opposite route?—W. E. A.
