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MY GARDEN PETS.

By EDWARD H. ROBERTSON.

PART IV.

PON the close of the honey harvest, about the

UPON

end of July, after which usually follows the hottest period of the year, Apis mellifica appears to get into an uncomfortable condition of body, which brings about a somewhat unamiable condition of mind. The fierce heat, the plundering of their store, and the rude treatment to which at such times they are unavoidably subjected, beget in them a chronic state of irritability, at which can we wonder? and the careful beekeeper, as far as possible, avoids any cause of provocation.

The sordidness of many modern apiarians leads them, not only into plundering their industrious servants of the whole of their sweet store, to the very last drop, giving in exchange, too often, the veriest trash, and barely sufficient even of that to keep them from actual starvation, but, also, to the habitual extraction of honey, from comb containing brood. The apiarian is never happy unless he is meddling with his pets! little wonder then that the much persecuted little fellows become irascible, that brood perishes, that stocks dwindle-and that foul-brood is disseminated throughout the length and breadth of the land. I should consider myself little better than a lunatic if I ever extracted honey from a comb containing brood, and never, unless honey be very abundant, do I take any from the hive-bar frame or skep.

When an angry bee means mischief he emits a remarkably pungent, but not unpleasant odourprobably formic acid; when this is perceived let the timid bee-keeper take to his heels, if he would avoid a sting or rather stings, for the odour seems a signal which arouses the ire of other bees, and, almost before he is aware, he is surrounded by an angry host, who will soon put him to ignominious flight. As the odour, although frequently perceptible when bees sting unintentionally through pressure or injury, is much fainter at such times, it seems probable that its emission is as much under the insect's control as are the odours emitted by many animals under the influence of anger, fear, &c.

A sense of justice here impels me to record that Apis mellifica is a thief. Some bees appear to take kindly to robbing as a profession, but, as a rule, they evidently rob to obtain possession of stores they know to exist not for their own use, but rather for that of their friends. The sagacious little rascals realise that the well-being of future generations depends upon the labours of the present, and when supplies are short, or are becoming so, they seek to replenish them in the readiest way that offers. There is nothing selfish in a bee's nature, his unselfish object is the good of the community, and

in pursuit of this object he not only lives, but also, it may be truly said, dies. How pertinaciously the rascals will hover and zig-zag close to the mouth of the hive selected for their attentions, few but experienced apiarians would credit-keeping the watchful sentinels ever on the alert, sometimes for weeks together. In any case a great sacrifice of bee life is the inevitable result of these marauding expeditions, for not only do not the burglarious proceedings of the robbers pass unpunished, as evidenced by the frequency of the conflicts, but the tiny heaps of slain that at such times appear on the ground beneath doubtless consist of the bodies of both defenders and assaulters. I give no quarter to these robbers. I have but one punishment for them-death, and being quick-sighted and defthanded, many a raider falls beneath my scissors. Snip and a headless carcase tumbling into the midst of the crowd, always on such occasions gathered around the gates of the citadel, is seized upon by the enraged defenders, who, dragging it to the edge of the board, tumble it over where it helps to swell the heap beneath.

Scissors-slaughter is all very well as an adjunct to other and better plans, but of itself will not go far towards keeping robbers in check. The best plan is to narrow the entrance to the hive, and to give a liberal washing of carbolic acid and water, which soon scares away the would-be-plunderer; the smell of it is, however, such an abomination to bees that it seems too bad to inflict it upon the poor inmates. At times it becomes absolutely necessary.

The best antidote to robbing is to keep every hive in the apiary thoroughly well supplied. The danger to your stocks will then generally arise from your neighbours' bees, but if your stocks be strong they will be more than a match for them.

Of the many pretty sights to be witnessed in the insect world not one, in my estimation, surpasses that to be seen when a newly hived swarm of bees is to be transferred from a skep to a bar frame, or other hive. The skep containing the swarm is, usually towards evening, carried to a spot where, upon a lawn or other level plot of ground, has been spread a sheet, upon one end of which rests the frame hive, commonly slightly raised towards the bees, to afford them more ready ingress. Lifting the skep, mouth downwards, the operator suddenly lets go his hold, and as suddenly again catches it between the palms of his hands, as it descends towards the earth. The sudden jerk precipitates the whole of the bees on to the sheet, the heap spreading outwards as a bag of sand or peas would do, and my astonished pets have become a confused and struggling mass of insect life. A few seconds, when lo! in the twinkling of a eye, every head is turned towards the hive, whose wide open door invites them to enter, and a mighty phalanx is pressing on to the hospitable shelter; the substrata of bees, in

a compact body, remaining quiescent until their companions have passed over them, when they continue the march, and so, until the last bee has entered.

Now and again the queen mother may be seen, as she follows in the wake of her hurrying children, but invariably wriggles her way beneath and between their bodies. It is a pretty and not soon to be forgotten sight, and although oft repeated, one I never tire of looking upon. The singularity of the whole proceeding is that the creatures should so simultaneously be seized with a common impulse, probably one analogous to that which in the face of a common danger impels a panic-stricken multitude to flee the alert senses, when strained to their utmost, by some inconceivably rapid process of the mind, catching the faintest indications of danger or deliverance.

Let me here remark, that these somewhat hastily arranged notes are intended not so much for the bee-keeper as for the naturalist. To him I would say that the pursuit will afford an inexhaustible fund of pleasant interest. He must, however, permit me to warn him against the adoption of many of the socalled scientific methods of bee-keeping; if some of these were to be generally adopted every particle of pleasure would soon be scienced out of the pursuit, and it is more than probable that, in process of time, every bee would be scienced out of creation.

My pets, like their master, are decidedly oldfashioned, and do not take kindly to any new method not unquestionably preferable to that it is intended to supplant, and surely when we derive both pleasure and profit from the little toilers' labours, it is but just that we should, in return, consider not simply their preservation, but also their comfort. This can be best done by observing three conditions insisted upon by all practical bee-keepers. They must be well fed, and kept warm and dry, and all means to this end should be provided with a view to simplicity, economy, and efficiency. Some of the most advocated of modern methods fulfil none of these conditions, being complicated, costly, and inefficient, and I am not at all surprised that so many persons abandon the pursuit as being risky and profitless. Hitherto I have had no reason to regret my conservatism, for, although during the six years I have kept bees 75 per cent. of my neighbours' stocks have perished, mine have never shown the least indication of unhealthiness, and, if I except the loss of a stock through misadventure, I have never had a single casualty of any kind whatever. To the present day all my stocks are vigorous and strong, how long they will remain so I fear to hope, since a so-called scientific bee-keeper in the neighbourhood, some short time since, informed me that he had lost nearly the whole of his stocks through foul-brood.

Swalcliffe, Banbury, Oxon.

THE

NOTES ON THE LEMMING.

By JOHN WAger.

[Continued from p. 256.]

HE sudden advent of such hosts of lemming is naturally a marvel to the peasants, as, indeed, to others--and I met with several who still held to the faith of their fathers, recorded with credence by Pontoppidan and Olaus Magnus before him, that these curious little creatures drop down from the clouds. When at Flaam, in Kaardalen, near Urland, a tall, gravevisaged man said, in answer to my enquiry, "Jeg tror de komma fra himmel, i regn, eller snoe, eller i hvirvelvinde-I believe they come from the heavens, in rain, or snow, or whirlwinds." Others, less certain, asked my opinion respecting this high descent; and a peasant at Graven, on the Hardangerfjord, where they were numerous at the time, said that on a former occasion they appeared in such numbers and were so destructive that the people were quite alarmed, believing not only that they had dropped from the heavens, but had been sent as a judgment from God. The more intelligent of the Norwegian peasants said they came from the north; but from what particular part of that indefinite region they could not suggest. At Utne I was told that on a former visitation they had, on the approach of winter, drowned themselves by thousands in the Hardanger-fjord. It has already been stated that I met persons in Swedish Lapland who thought the lemming-swarms came from the sea or the clouds; and my friend the Lapland pastor also asserts in a letter, that among the mountains there are peasants who insist that they rain down from the sky, not being able otherwise to account for their sudden appearance in such astonishing numbers.

It is an old belief, and not confined to the vulgar. Olaus Magnus, the learned Archbishop of Upsala, writing in the sixteenth century, says, in the quaint language of an English translation, published in 1658, that in Helsingia and other parts of the North, they "fall out of the air in tempests or sudden showers; but no man knows from whence they come, whether from the remoter islands, and are brought thither by the wind, or else they breed of feculent matter in the clouds; yet this is proved, that as soon as they fall down there is found green grass in their bellies, not yet digested. These, like locusts, falling in great swarms, destroy all green things, and all dyes they bite on, by the venome of them. Their swarm lives so long as they feed on no new grass; also they come together in troops like swallows that are ready to fly away; but at the set time they either dye in heaps, with a contagion of the earth (by the corruption of them, the air grows pestilential) and the people are troubled with vertigos of the jaundice, or they are devoured by beasts, commonly called Lekat or Hermelin, and these ermins grow fat thereby." Pontoppidan does not feel quite sure that

These

lemmings drop from the air, but states that many persons, both in his own and former times, assert they have seen them thus descend; and that the possibility of the circumstance is admitted by Wormius, Scaliger, and other great men. philosophers suppose that the embryos of lemmings, like those of frogs and such small fry, may be attracted to the clouds, and there fed, fattened, and dropped down, all ready for French cooks and Laplanders' dogs. But other philosophers, of profounder insight, account for the singular phenomenon by the hypothesis that the mountain fogs-which sometimes, to suit their special purpose, are as thick as water-gruel and much stronger-may lift up the lemmings in muititudes, and carry them off bodily to a great distance; a feat which the incredulous Linneans may disbelieve, but which, nevertheless, is far more probable than that such a fog should abduct a Laplander and his herd-as formerly some of the peasants imagined it was able to do!

I

It was quite commonly said by the peasants of Norway, with whom I conversed on the subject, that the lemmings make their appearance every ten years; but this statement is not exact, for at Urland, I was told, thirteen years had elapsed since their previous visit, and at Utne and in Vestfjordalen, twelve years. Nor does the statement, that they always proceed from north to south, appear to be invariably correct. Söderhjelm, quoted by Lloyd, says they seem to migrate, in the north of Sweden, to all points of the compass, including a north-easterly direction towards the Icy Sea. Some writers affirm they always begin their migrations in spring, others in autumn. have never seen lemmings actually on the march ; those swarms amidst which I passed almost continuously from the Sogne-fjord, over the Hardanger, and through Thelemarken, might be then gradually extending themselves southwards, but wherever I saw them they were running about in all directions, eating the grass and other herbage; and I certainly saw young ones amongst them, not only on the Urland's-fjeld, but also in the Thelemark, though Pontoppidan says, that in Norway, during their migrations, young ones are never seen. I cannot, therefore, from my own observations, corroborate at all points the following account of their mode of procedure, communicated by my Laplandish friend; nor do I know that he has been an eye-witness of all it relates. It is a good summary, however, of what is known, or commonly stated, on the subject. "So long as the numbers of the lemmings do not exceed the available means of subsistence on the mountain, they there remain; but when its resources prove insufficient to feed the increased multitudes, and famine stands at the door, then out wander they, and on their course eat up all vegetation they are able to attain, desolating large tracts. If during their mountain life they shun water, so much the more spirit and courage in surmounting it they display on

their migrations; for they march right onwards, allowing neither rapids nor great waters to dismay them. Many, indeed, perish on these aquatic tours, and after stormy weather the mountain lakes may be seen overspread with dead lemmings; but in great multitudes also they reach the sea-coast, where true to their persistent and fearless inclination they commit themselves to the sea, in which thousands. find a grave; and only when it is too late can they be brought to think of turning back. Consequently few regain the mountain, to begin a new migration when their numbers have again augmented beyond its means for supplying them with a sufficiency of food."

Hülphers, an old Swedish author, says that the descent of lemmings upon the low lands forebodes. a bad year; and in Norway, when they scream more than usual, bad weather is supposed to be at hand.

I

NOTE ON COCA.

READ Mr. Whittaker's short article on Erythroxylon Coca with great interest. As a drug it has increased very greatly in use during the last year, from the discovery of the anesthetic properties of its alkaloid; and it has been found especially useful in ophthalmic cases. In the early part of this year, the demand for the alkaloid cocaine increased to such an extent, that the supply fell short of the demand, and the price of the drug went up to almost a prohibitive figure. (Cocaine reached 30 cents per grain.) According to Dr. Squibb (in Ephemeris, May), “There appear to be two very distinct varieties of Coca, the Peruvian and Bolivian, each country claiming each variety as being the best. Each variety is divided into the wild and cultivated leaf. Coca from wild plants is larger and thinner, and is generally considered inferior, but of its inferiority there is much doubt." In Bolivia and Peru, from three to four crops of leaves are procured per annum. The United States Minister Gibbs of La Paz, says that the women pick the leaves by hand, and in doing so are careful not to touch the top of the bush, for if this be touched by man or animal, "it withers and dries up." The consumers of Coca in Peru and Bolivia are the native races, and the habit must have descended. from the times of the Incas, since Mr. Gibbs says he has found buried with the ancient Peruvians, small quantities of Coca, and the small earthen vase used with it, to hold the lime or potassa of the coca chewer."

The plant has been grown in the Botanic Gardens of Ceylon for several years past, so that, as Mr. Whittaker suggests, it may start a very lucrative industry in our Indian provinces. As Mr. Whittaker states in his article, opinions differ as to the virtues and effects of the leaves. I do not however think. any of his surmises hit upon the true reason for this discrepancy in results obtained by different experi

menters. The reason is probably to be found in the instability of the alkaloid, cocaine. Few alkaloids are so sensitive to physical and chemical action, and hence the percentage of active ingredient varies greatly in different samples of the leaves. "Leaves dried in damp weather, or pressed into the sacks before being completely dried, undergo a fermentation that destroys the cocaine. The destruction goes on gradually, until the complete disappearance of the alkaloid." (M. Bignon.) In the new edition of the British Pharmacopoeia, just published, coca leaves are made official, together with the hydrochlorate of cocaine, and a preparation of this salt with gelatine and glycerine, in small discs, each containing of a grain of the salt.

The coca plant blossoms profusely several times a year, but does not produce seed very freely. It is readily propagated from cuttings. Mr. Whittaker describes the flowers as being white, but in an editorial in the "Pharmaceutical Journal " for July last, the flowers are said to be "yellow, faintly scented." Probably they vary in colour, although, as far as my experience goes, yellow-flowered plants are least prone to produce albino varieties.

J. A. WHELDON.

SCIENCE-GOSSIP.

ANOTHER journey across Africa has been achieved, the travellers in this case being two Portuguese explorers, Captain Capello and Commander Ivens. They left Mossamedes, a place on the west coast of Africa, lat. about 15° S. in March of last year, and arrived at Quillimane on the east coast, near the mouths of the Zambesi river in May last. They are Isaid to have discovered the sources of the Lualaba, an affluent of the Congo. It seems likely that the regions they have traversed contain a good many elephants, and therefore much ivory, for they noticed the tsetsé fly which has disappeared from the southeast country, to be very abundant farther north. The connection between the two statements is supplied by the observation made by these explorers, as well as often stated before, that the tsetsé fly abounds where there are plenty of elephants.

THE Proceedings of the Bristol Naturalists' Society, 1884-5, came to hand too late to be included in last month's notice. It is more imposing than most similar publications, as it contains a coloured geological map showing the neighbourhood of the Avon from Bristol to Avonmouth, explanatory of a paper on the Sub-aerial Denudation of the Avon Gorge, by Professor C. Lloyd Morgan, F.G.S., three coloured plates of Fungi illustrating notes on the Fungi of the Bristol District, by Mr. C. Bucknall; and a platinotype of a Finn whale which was lately stranded in the Bristol Channel, on which Mr. E. Wilson,

F.G.S., curator of the Bristol Museum, contributes some notes. Besides these, Mr. C. T. Druery, F.L.S., gives an account of Apospory in Ferns. On this subject he read a paper before the Linnean Society last year, of which an abstract may be found on p. 164 of this volume. "The Flora of the Bristol Coal-field," Part v. including Dictyogenæ and Florida, edited by Mr. J. W. White, concludes the number.

It appears from a review in "Science" of a book by P. de Lucy-Fossarieu, that the Patagonians, who formerly had the reputation of being giants, are of huge make in the upper part of their bodies, but their legs are disproportionately short and slender, and frequently bend outward. It is stated that before the horse was introduced into that region a little over two centuries ago, the natives used to chase the guanaco and ostrich on foot; and it is supposed that their present conformation is due to constant horse-riding. It is suggested that they may have lost as much as two inches in stature owing to the change in their mode of life, which two inches if added to their present height would bring them up to the stature of the giants seen by the companions of Magellan.

THOSE members of the Dorset Natural History and Antiquarian Field Club whose tastes are Conchological owe a debt of thanks to their president, Mr. J. C. Mansel-Pleydell, F.L.S., for his book on the Land and Freshwater Mollusca of the county. Though said to be taken from the Proceedings of the Society, it forms a volume of nearly sixty pages, in which descriptive text and habitats are given to practically all the species named, while at the end are half-a-dozen uncoloured lithographic plates with numerous figures. These alone would make the book useful.

FROM a notice which has appeared in "Science " of Thomas Alva Edison, it appears that he was born in 1847, became a train boy on the Grand Trunk Railway; and later on, when the line was completed between Port Huron and Detroit, he set up a printing-office in the baggage-car, employing assistants, and issued therefrom a weekly journal, "The Grand Trunk Herald." His attention was drawn to telegraphy, and he became a telegraph operator, an inventor and manufacturer, and finally an investigator and inventor only. He has already taken out in America about four hundred patents, among the inventions by which he is perhaps best known being those connected with incandescent electric lighting and the phonograph. The account of Mr. Edison is accompanied by a portrait.

IT appears that Dr. H. Hoffmann has shown in the case of several dioecious plants, including red and white campions (L. diur. and vesp.), dog's mercury (Mer. annua), and hop (Cann. sativa), that the

comparative number of male to female plants is affected by thick sowing, which increases the relative number of male plants. The result is attributed to an insufficiency of nutrition during the embryonal stage.

As a method of destroying infection and insect life, it is said in a contemporary that a bottle of bromine left open all night in the room will answer the purpose. It is to be hoped that no one who is unacquainted with bromine will rashly try to put this into practice, and it is unlikely that any one who has experienced the effects of a little bromine vapour on the eyes will wish to be the first to go into the room the next morning.

EVERYBODY will be sorry to hear that Professor Huxley has been obliged, through continued illhealth, to resign the Presidency of the Royal Society. Professor Stokes is to succeed him as President.

Dr. J. E. TAYLOR, F.G.S., Editor of SCIENCEGOSSIP, has just returned from a highly successful lecturing tour in the Australian Colonies. His last lecture was delivered at the Melbourne University on "The Origin of the Atmosphere."

ON October 17th, the first telpherage line was opened at Glynde in Sussex. This is a new means by which goods and passengers can be conveyed by means of electricity without driver, guard, signalmen, or attendants. The line is one mile in length, and is used for carrying clay. It is not intended to compete with railways, but to do cheaply the work of horses, tramways, &c.

LIVERPOOL intends to hold an International Exhibition in May next. The corporation have granted a site of 35 acres for the purpose.

DR. THOMAS DAVIDSON, F.R.S., the celebrated palæontologist, has just died at the age of 69. He was distinguished for his researches and numerous publications on the Fossil brachiopoda.

PENNY Science Lectures are being delivered at the Royal Victoria Hall and Coffee Tavern, Waterloo Bridge Road. Sir John Lubbock and Mr. W. Lant Carpenter have already lectured there.

THE third annual session of the Youth Scientific and Literary Society commenced November 19th, 1885, when a general meeting was held at headquarters, The Tolmers Square Institute, Drummond Street, Euston Road, N.W. The officers for the session are: President, Alex. Ramsay, F.G.S., F.R.G.S., Editor of the "Garner," &c.; Vice-Presi dents: (Scientific), J. W. Williams, D.Sc., B.A., F.L.S., &c. (late Pres.), and (Literary), Rupert Parry, F.S.Sc.

COMPOSITE Portraiture is again the subject of a paper in "Science," this time by Mr. Joseph Jastrow, who describes how the effect may be produced by a stereoscope, and even from two living faces, without

the intervention of photography at all. In the course of his paper he says, that the characteristics of the results are the means of those of the originals employed. Thus the composite portrait of a young lady of twenty and her mother of sixty, gives a lady of about forty, while one of a young lady and her grandmother gives a face more like the mother than like the grandmother or the granddaughter.

THE simplest form of electric lamp for use by surgeons, &c., according to "Engineering," is one brought out by Messrs. Woodhouse and Rawson, in which the use of an external reflector is dispensed with, one side of the lamp bulb being silvered so as to reflect the light.

IN the address of Mr. B. Baker, M.S.C.E., president of Section G in the British Association, he said that at the present time absolute chaos prevails among engineers as to rules respecting the strength of metallic bridges. That a bridge which would be passed by our Board of Trade would require strengthening in different parts from five to six per cent. before passing the German Government or the leading railway companies in America; that iron girders are injured by a change in the weight they support, that which is a relief to a muscle being bad for a bar of iron. "Hundreds of existing railway bridges which carry twenty trains a day with perfect safety, would break down quickly with twenty trains per hour."

GRANO-METALLIC stone is formed of a certain proportion of blast furnace slag and granite, crushed, chemically treated, dried, and mixed with Portland cement, made into paste with alkaline solution, and laid on rough ballast, a smooth surface being given at finish. It is said to be ready for use in twelve hours in ordinary weather. It is both fire-proof and water-proof, and is not slippery, since particles of hard slag always project. It has already been laid down in the Strand.

MR. A. SOMERVILLE, F.L.S., has conferred a great boon on students of British Conchology, by the publication of a list of British marine shells, comprising those of brachiopoda and mollusca proper, after the arrangements in the late Dr. Jeffrey's "British Conchology,” including additions up to the present year.

PERHAPS there is no more enthusiastic group of naturalists than is to be found in Yorkshire and Lancashire. Nowhere is the upward levelling tendency of natural science more plainly seen. Every town has a society of some kind-sometimes several such-devoted to these studies, and the members include every class of the community, although we are glad to know that the artisans frequently form the chief portion No modern studies are better calculated to sweeten a life of toil than those of botany, zoology, and geology. We should like our readers to see the

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