a bird would cross America and appear on our east coast; but is it not likely that it might be an escaped bird, brought over by some sailor to the port of Grangemouth or some other? Sailors are often much given to bringing home curiosities. I do not think that had Mr. Beckwith seen the bird as closely as we did, he would unhesitatingly have pronounced the yellow to be the effect of colouring matter. My friend Mr. Young, however, was much more positive that it was not such than I was. I may further mention that I did not observe the "naked skin around and behind the eyes, which is bright yellow," mentioned by Professor Newton (S. S. 757) as being present in Pica Nuttalli. The Professor again says, however, that in his figure of the bird in the Atlas' there is no appearance of this bare yellow skin round the eye. I am afraid that no satisfactory conclusion can now be arrived at with respect to this yellow-billed magpie.-John A. Harvie Brown. Scaup Duck breeding in Britain.-In the 'Zoologist' for July (S. S. 811) your correspondent Mr. Cordeaux asks if there is any well-authenticated instance of the Scaup remaining and breeding in Great Britain. I quote the following from Mr. Selby's "List of the Birds inhabiting the County of Sutherland," as observed by him when visiting that county in 1834:-"Scaup Pochard (Fuligula marila). A single female was shot by Sir William Jardine in a small loch between Loch Hope and Eriboll: she was attended by a young one, which unfortunately escaped among the reeds. This is the first instance of its breeding in Britain having been ascertained that I am aware of."-Id. Puffins on the Norfolk Coast.-An immature female of the puffin was shot about the 22nd of March on the beach near Beeston Regis. On the 19th instant an adult female was picked up dead on the beach in the same locality. The occurrence of the puffin is rather unusual at this season of the year on the Norfolk coast, and therefore I think it had probably been driven from the northern coast, and fell exhausted and was washed ashore: I could find no indication of any wounds or injury when skinning the bird, although I closely examined it.-T. E. Gunn. Scyllarus arctus on the North Coast of Cornwall.-You can note the occurrence of Scyllarus arctus at Sennen Cove, a white-sand (i. e. gulf-stream) bay on the north coast of Cornwall, just east of Land's End. The specimen is a female in berry, but was dead when brought to me.-Thomas Cornish; Penzance, July 8, 1867. Note on the Voracity of the Bornean Crocodile.-Several years since the late Captain Richard Glasspoole presented to the Norwich Museum a fine skull of the above-mentioned crocodile (Crocodilus biporcatus of Cuvier), accompanied by the following account, which I believe has never been published, and which therefore appears to me, though not of recent date, to be worthy of record in the pages of the "Zoologist':-"The formidable animal from which this head was taken measured nearly thirty feet in length, and was caught, in the year 1827, in the river BenjaMassa, in Borneo, where it had long been a terror to the neighbourhood. A few weeks previous to its capture it attacked two men on a raft, father and son: it caught the son by the arm and took him under water, the father jumped into the river to rescue him when the animal left the son and devoured the father: the son reached the shore much injured. It soon afterwards upset a canoe and devoured the chief of a Malay village, whose relations made a vow to revenge themselves, and after long watching succeeded in destroying it: part of the clothing and ornaments of the chief were found in the stomach. This account was given by the Dutch Resident De Groot to Captain Henderson, who presented the head to Captain Richard Glasspoole." This skull has lately been examined by Dr. J. E. Gray, who informs me that it belongs to the species above referred to, which occurs not only in Borneo, but also in some of the estuaries of India, as well as in those of Northern Australia. In confirmation of the great size to which this reptile attains, I may, in conclusion, quote the following remark from Mr. Adams's 'Notes on the Natural History of the Countries visited by H.M.S. Samarang' (p. 365):-The crocodile (Crocodilus biporcatus) must occasionally attain to a very large size in Borneo; judging from an enormous skull found whitening on the beach, the owner must have been at least twenty-eight feet long."-J. H. Gurney; June, 1867. PROCEEDINGS OF SOCIETIES. ENTOMOLOGICAL SOCIETY. July 1, 1867.-Sir JOHN LUBBOCK, Bart., President, in the chair. Donations to the Library. The following donations were announced, and thanks voted to the donors:'Exotic Butterflies,' Part 63, by W. C. Hewitson; presented by the Author. 'The Entomologist's Monthly Magazine' for July; by the Editors. Election of Member. Dr. George William Davidson, of 13, Union Place, Edinburgh, was ballotted for, and elected a Member. Exhibitions, &c. Mr. Busk (who was present as a visitor) mentioned, on the authority of Dr. Cobbold, that the small worm exhibited at the previous Meeting was not Gordius aquaticus, but Mermis nigrescens. Mr. M'Lachlan exhibited Ciniflo ferox from Folkestone, where that spider had been captured by Dr. Knaggs; and living specimens of a spider and a large centipede, which were found in the hold of a ship recently arrived from Manilla with a mixed cargo, principally consisting of sugar and hemp. The Secretary exhibited brauches and the fruit of an orange-tree infested with some insect, with regard to which information was requested by Mr. Charles Moore, Curator of the Botanic Garden, Sydney, New South Wales. Prof. Westwood discovered two species of Coccus upon the branches, but was unable to detect anything but mould upon the fruit. Mr. Stainton exhibited a collection of Micro-Lepidoptera obtained from the larvæ which he had collected whilst at Cannes and Mentone in February and March: the collection comprised upwards of thirty species, amongst which may be specially mentioned a fine series of Depressaria rutana, from larvæ on Ruta angustifolia on the rocks at Monaco; a specimen of Phibalocera quercana, bred from Arbutus; two species of Gelechia, bred from larvæ feeding on Silene Nicaensis, and forming sandcocoons amongst the roots of that plant (one species being probably identical with our G. marmorea); a new species of Zelleria, allied to Z. hepariella, for which M. Millière proposes the name of Phillyrella, bred from the flowers of Phillyrea angustifolia; and a Nepticula, bred from the cork-tree. Mr. Stainton remarked that, in addition to the species bred, there were a number of different larvæ which he failed to rear, and among them was another species of Nepticula on the cork-tree with a very peculiar mine. The Hon. Thomas De Grey exhibited Eupœcilia anthemidana and E. rupicola from Norfolk; and mentioned that he had on the previous day captured in Kent five specimens of Hypercallia Christierninana. Mr. A. R. Wallace exhibited a collection of Malayan Cetoniidæ, in illustration of the paper mentioned below. Papers read. "Observations on Dzierzon's Theory of Reproduction in the Honey-bee," by Mr. John Lowe, of Edinburgh. With a view to test the truth of the theory that "all eggs which come to maturity in the two ovaries of a queen-bee are only of one and the same type, which when they are laid without coming in contact with the male semen, become developed into male bees, but, on the contrary, when they are fertilized by male semen, produce female bees," from which theory, if true, we might, in the words of Von Siebold, "expect beforehand that by the copulation of a unicolorous blackish brown German and a reddish brown Italian bee, the mixture of the two races would only be expressed in the hybrid females or workers, but not in the drones, which, as proceeding from unfecundated eggs, must remain purely German or purely Italian, according as the queen selected for the production of hybrids belonged to the German or Italian race," the writer set to work to obtain hybrids between Apis mellifica and Apis Ligustica, and also between Apis mellifica and Apis fasciata, and the result of his experiments was that Ligurian queen-bees fertilized by English drones and Egyptian queen-bees fertilized by English drones, both produced drones which, as well as the workers, were hybrid in their characters, and bore unmistakeable evidence of the influence of the male parent. From this the Author drew the conclusion that the eggs of a queen-bee which has been fertilized by a drone of another race, whether they develope into drones or workers, are in some way affected by the act of fecundation, and that both sexes of the progeny partake of the paternal and maternal character or race; from which it followed that Dzierzon's was not the true theory of reproduction in the honey-bee. Specimens of the hybrids were exhibited to the Meeting, and Mr. Frederick Smith (who did not consider Apis Ligustica to be specifically distinct from Apis mellifica), after an examination of the specimens, corroborated Mr. Lowe's statement that the hybrid drones distinctly showed characters peculiar to Apis mellifica in combination with the characters which distinguish A. Ligustica and A. fasciata respectively. "A Catalogue of the Cetoniidæ of the Malayan Archipelago, with Descriptions of the New Species," by Mr. A. R. Wallace. In this Catalogue 181 Malayan Cetoniidæ are enumerated, 70 of them being described as new. A new Part of the 'Transactions' (Third Series, Vol. iii. Part 4), being the third Part published during 1867, and containing a further instalment of Mr. Pascoe's Longicornia Malayana," was on the table.-J. W. D. Noles on the Folk-lore of Zoology. By EDWARD R. ALSTON, Esq. FOLLOWING in the path in which my friend Mr. Harting has so ably shown the way, I propose to throw together a few notes on the folklore of our Science, that is, on the various legends, superstitions and popular beliefs concerning animals. In old days many of these were articles of faith with refined poets and grave philosophers; now they only find refuge with the uncultivated and ignorant, and even there the spread of education and intelligence is fast rooting them out. Still they are of interest, both to the antiquarian and the naturalist, and therefore I have collected the following observations from various sources, trusting that other readers of the 'Zoologist' will be able to add to them, and thus preserve interesting information from being lost. In order to keep the matter within reasonable bounds, I have confined these notes to the vertebrate fauna of Europe. I. QUADRUPEDS. Bat.-The bats, with their weird appearance, shadowy flight and nocturnal habits, have been beasts (or birds) of evil omen from the earliest times; their habit, too, of haunting churches, ruins, caves and other ghostly localities, has assisted in the formation of their bad character: no poet omits them in his fearful scenes, while painters and sculptors have adorned the devil and his imps with bats' wings from time immemorial: the consequence is that to this day many people would rather not meddle with a bat, although not able to say what harm it can do. Hedgehog.-The hedgehog is another victim of slander. Not contented with his real sins against game and poultry, the vox populi must needs accuse him of milking the cows, and also of climbing appletrees, shaking down the fruit and then rolling on it so as to carry it off impaled on his spines! Nor was this all, according to Pliny the hedgehog maliciously destroys the value of its skin, used as a hackle by the Romans, by voiding a stinking secretion on it in the moment of death (Bell's 'Quadrupeds'). Then it, too, was a beast of evil omen, and as such is introduced by Shakespeare : "1st Witch. Thrice the brindled cat hath mewed. SECOND SERIES-VOL. II. 2 z So that altogether the poor hedgehog seems to have lost in popular story what little character he ever possessed. Common Shrew.-But of all ill-treated animals surely the poor "erd-shrew" was the worst used. Perfectly harmless, and even useful, he has been marked by popular belief as poisonous and hateful, and the remedies to be applied to those he afflicted generally involved the death or torture of the wretched animal. It would be unnecessary to quote White of Selborne's well-known account of how a "shrewash" was made, viz. by plugging the unfortunate creature up in a hole bored in an ash-tree, the twigs of which were henceforth endowed with the power of curing the "shrew-struck," that is, those who had been unlucky enough to be touched by this "ravening beast." The Rev. J. Wood quotes an old author named Topsel (1658), who prescribes various other remedies; first, the earth of a cart-road, which is fatal to them; secondly, "the shrew, which by falling by chance into a cart-rode or track, doth die upon the same," is to be burned, beaten to dust, mixed with goose-grease, and used as an ointment. The preparations were for the injuries caused by the animal itself, but other formula were specifics for "fellons or biles," "impostrumes" and the "bite of a greedy and ravenous dog" (Wood, Popular Natural History, vol. i. p. 435). Mole. The mole has bright little eyes, but it has been pronounced by tradition to be blind, and blind it will probably remain with the multitude to the end: however, there is some foundation for this belief, a really sightless mole (Talpa cæca) being found in Southern Europe, which was probably the species best known to the ancients. The "moudiewarp" is gradually spreading through the Scotch Highlands, and a Gaelic soothsayer has foretold that when it has overrun Argyleshire to the Mull of Cantyre it will drive all the Campbells, the great landowners of that district, from their estates. Here the wish is probably the father to the thought, for the "sons of Diarmid" are not popular with their less fortunate neighbours. Wolverine. This appears to be another ill-treated animal, its common and by no means flattering cognomen of "glutton" having arisen, according to Voigt, from a mistranslation. The Fins call it "fiæl-frass," a dweller among rocks, which has been confounded with the German word "viel-frass," a glutton. If you give a dog an evil name you may hang it, saith the proverb, and accordingly the wolverine's habits, voracious enough in themselves, have been exaggerated to suit its name. Thus it was believed that when it had eaten to |
