ART. V. Queries and Answers.

A PAIR of Butcher Birds (Lanius Collùrio, m. et f.?). - About three years ago, a pair of butcher birds were observed building in this neighbourhood, and were watched till their eggs were on the point of hatching and then snared. These birds have since come into my possession, and on comparing them with the plates and descriptions in Bewick's sixth edition of Land Birds, I find the male agrees precisely with that of the red-backed shrike, p. 73., and the female with the one at p. 75., which is there called the woodchat; but in the appendix, p. 377., where another figure of the woodchat is given from a specimen in the collection of Mr. Leadbeater, is the following paragraph in allusion to this figure: "At page 75. is given a figure of a shrike, which, judging from that of Buffon, appears to be the female of the woodchat; hence it may be concluded, that if the female is found in this country, so in all probability is the male also." Now as this appears to be the only reason Mr. Bewick had for stating this bird to be the female woodchat (Lanius rùfus), I suppose that he is in error, and that the figures at p. 73. and 75. are the male and female red-backed shrike (Lànius Collùrio). I have never seen a specimen of the woodchat known to have been killed in Britain; but, perhaps, some of your readers will be able to throw a little light upon both these points. — W. Farrar, M.D. Barnsley, Aug. 1. 1829. Peculiar Smell of the Greater Shrike. — Sir, Can any of your correspondents account for the peculiar smell which proceeds from the greater shrike (L. excùbitor) after death, and which is not unlike the smell which arises from the explosion of gunpowder? I have noticed the same peculiarity in the nuthatch (Sítta europæ`a), but in a much less degree. Yours, &c.— A. N. July 21. 1829.

The Storks in Germany. - Sir, In Lower Germany there is a singular belief concerning the storks (abus, as the Low Germans call them), which build on the ridges of the thatched houses in the flat and marshy parts of Germany. It is, that they pay the master of the house for leave to build their nests on his roof; the first year they pay a quill feather, some say cut into a pen; the second, an egg; and the third year a young one; the fourth year they begin with the feather again, and so on as long as the same pair continue to build on the house. These payments they lay on the dunghill, which stands before what the Germans call the long door, like our barn door; the barn and dwelling-house are under the same roof, the door for the family is at the side.

This I was assured was the fact by several, but I could find none who had seen it, they only knew somebody who had a nest and had been paid. They think it a sign of good luck to have a nest, and, therefore, as soon as they see a pair of storks flying about, they collect straw, &c., for them to make their nest with. Perhaps some of your numerous correspondents can speak to the truth or falsity of the fact.-G. H. Clapton, Aug. 28. 1829. Softening the Skins of Birds. Sir, I should feel greatly obliged to any of your correspondents, if they would inform me, through the medium of your Magazine, how to soften the skins of birds which have become dry and hard, without injuring the feathers. Having received specimens in this state from friends, who have been able to skin the bird, but not to mount it afterwards; I am at a loss how to restore suppleness, and am rather surprised that in all the treatises which I have read on taxidermy, I have not found any instructions upon a point so necessary to be known by preservers of subjects of natural history. I am, Sir, &c.-J. A. H.

Acilius pumileònis. - What are the habits of this insect, which is said to prove ruinous to the wheat crops in particular situations?-P. S. Berwickshire, August, 1829.

The Zimb. I have lately read that the effects produced by this insect, both on man and beast, are of a dreadful nature. Bruce, in his Travels in Africa, says, "As soon as this winged assassin appears, and his buzzing is heard, the cattle forsake their food, and run wildly about the plain till they are worn out with fatigue, fright, and pain." I shall feel obliged if any of your correspondents can inform me to what order this terrible insect belongs, with a description of its habits, and the method of producing the fatal effects ascribed to it. Is it not the fly mentioned by the prophet Isaiah, ch. vii. v. 18. and 19.?— W. H. White. Bedford, June 9. 1829.

Spinning Slugs. (p. 69. and 303.)—Sir, Careful observers of natural phenomena may doubtless find many opportunities of observing slugs spin. I, without pretending to be more than a casual observer, and having but few opportunities, have witnessed it more than once; and I can state from actual observation, that slugs do climb up trees at this time of the year (July), and particularly in warm damp weather, and suspend themselves by a slimy cord from a branch; but that it is not done for any purpose implied in, or that could be inferred from, your correspondent's article; it is for the purpose of copulation, and I believe all our indigenous slugs procreate in the same manner. I have never seen snails shooting love shafts at each other; I should be glad I did, being rather sceptical on that head. Perhaps some of your correspondents could give some information as to what time of year and in what situations they might be observed. I am, Sir, &c.— J. B. Liverpool, July 10. 1829.

Flora Virgiliana. Sir, Your correspondent W. (p. 401.) expresses a de sire that you should furnish us with a complete Flòra Virgiliana. "I should like," he says, "to see all the weeds included;" a desire in which every botanist, as well as scholar, will be ready to join. It were, indeed, devoutly to be wished; for we should then, with W., “recur with a new pleasure to our old acquaintance,”

Till something of the kind be effected, schoolboys are under the necessity of rendering these words, not by their real appropriate names, but by those of some analogous weeds of their own country, and their masters are unable to teach them better. My schoolmaster, Mr. Editor, was a botanist as well as a scholar; and as I had early imbibed a love for natural history, the georgic lesson was always a pleasure to me,-I believe I may say, to both of us. Still, however, even with the help of Martyn's edition, which he always had before him on the occasion, and kindly allowed me to consult, we were sometimes at a fault; the Roman plants seemed often to defy us to identify them, and Virgil and Linnæus were not easily to be reconciled.

Your correspondent having dismissed the weeds, goes on to say, mean time, until difficulties be cleared away, let us rejoice in the"

"In the

From the manner in which these lines are introduced, I am almost inclined to think that your correspondent sees no difficulties here, and is satisfied as to the species of all the plants enumerated in this passage. But does it not present us with some obscurities as great as those in which the weeds before mentioned are involved? What species, for instance, is meant by sera comantem narcissum?" Most, if not all the Narcíssi, are, with

us at least, early spring flowers. I almost fancy I have somewhere read (or else the idea itself has occurred to my mind), that no species of narcissus or daffodil was intended, but rather Amaryllis lùtea, the yellow autumnal lily. Be this as it may, however, at least "flexi vimen acanthi " was always a great puzzler, and has afforded much matter for discussion among the learned. On referring to Martyn's Georgics, I see it suggested, from the impossibility of finding any one plant with which all the characters ascribed to acanthus will agree, that the poet in all probability speaks in different passages of two distinct plants under that name, the one a tree, and the other an herb. From the well-known anecdote about the origin of the Corinthian capital, we might be led, reasonably enough, to identify the acanthus of the ancients with the Linnean genus of the same name. On the other hand, Sir J. Smith, if I remember right (for I cannot immediately refer to the passage), strenuously contends that the acanthus of Virgil is no other than the common holly (I'lex Aquifolium). Possibly this great botanist, when he broached such an opinion, might not have sufficiently attended to the various passages of Virgil in which the acanthus is mentioned, and the apparently discordant accounts given of it. For, as Professor Martyn observes, in one place Virgil speaks of it as a tree that bears berries, and is always green :

"baccas semper frondentis acanthi." (Georg. ii. 119.)

Again, in Georg. iv. 123. already quoted, he seems to speak of it as a twining plant, and a little afterwards he mentions it as a garden plant:

"Ille comam mollis jam tum tondebat acanthi."

The epithet mollis is surely quite inapplicable to the holly, and except by way of contrast (as Linnæus employs it in naming one species), almost equally so to the modern genus Acánthus. It is a remark, perhaps too obvious to mention, that much allowance must be made for the heightening of poetical diction, and that the same accuracy of botanical description must not be looked for in the beautiful lines of the Mantuan bard, as we may fairly expect in the Spècies Plantarum of the great Swede. On these and similar knotty points, Mr. Editor, I should be glad of further information, through the pages of your Magazine. Yours, &c.-B. Coventry, Sept. 8. The Specimen of the Shrub from Claremont, sent by Miss C. Watson, in order to ascertain its name, is the Grevillea (in commemoration of the Right Hon. Charles Greville) punícea, Proteacea (fig. 117.), an elegant shrub introduced a few years ago from New South Wales, and usually kept in the green-house. If gathered in the open shrubbery, as our correspondent says it was, it must have been turned out there for the summer season, or by way of experiment.

Cond.

Fossil Plants. -The enclosed drawings (fig. 118.) are a continuation of the fossil plants found in the Little Mine Coal in Clifton, near Manchester. The figures a, b, c, d, e, and f, I have not been able to meet with in any other mine; they are drawn the full size, and, with the exception of f, in nearly the same situation as when found. I have met with the plant g in most mines in Lancashire. I should feel greatly obliged, if any of your readers would inform me to what order and genus they belong. Yours, &c. - B. St. Helen's, June 4. 1829.

The Dadley's Spring. - Sir, The corn spring in this parish, which I gave a short notice of, p. 297. of your Magazine, I visited on the 21st of August, and found that it had entirely ceased to flow. The exact period of its cessation I am unable to state; but I know that it was flowing about the middle of June or later, though with a somewhat diminished stream. From the appearance which the channel presented on the 21st of August, I should suppose the spring must have ceased to flow for at least a fortnight or more. Is it not fair to infer that its operations may have been stopped by the long continued drought in the early part of the summer? The late heavy rains have probably not yet had time to produce a counter effect. Allow me to remark, that your printer has committed a slight mistake in the orthography of the name of the above-mentioned spring: it should be Dadley's spring, not Dudley's, as printed at p. 297. Yours, &c.-W. T. Bree. Allesley Rectory, August 26. 1829.

The Corn Spring (p. 297. 408). — May not this be accounted for on the principle of the intermitting springs explained in the Library of Useful Knowledge, under Hydrostatics? - John Mearns. Shobden Court, near Leominster, Sept. 27. 1829.

Muphatamet's Optical Phenomenon (p. 108.) is perfectly easy of solution, without having recourse to any supposition about the effect of refraction. No shadows can be visible unless produced by bodies obstructing the rays or stream of light, whether from the body or from the reflected image of the The first and darkest shadow was that of the passenger on the wall, produced in the ordinary way (fig. 119. a). The second was the shadow of

sun.

the same passenger (b), produced by the obstruction of the stream of reflected light from the sun's image presented on the watery surface of the street, as shown in the diagram annexed. As proof of this, let any one stand between a wall and a piece of water (or looking-glass laid on the ground in the line of the sun), so as the spectator can see both the sun and the sun's image at the same time; he will have a double shadow on the walls quite visible to himself or others. This effect is often seen, or may be seen, in well-lighted rooms where there are plate looking-glasses or mirrors. -J.M.