monkey is quite natural; no one would suppose it concealed a mummified Marmozet.

THE HARVEST BUG, p. 124.-I think it is very possible that the irritation of these harvest bugs would cause fever. My

friend, the late Professor Quekett, told me that when staying in the country, he once offered a penny each to the village children for harvest bugs for the microscope; in a few minutes he was obliged to retract his offer, they were so plentiful. The harvest bug is smaller than the mite; it can just be seen in the cracks of the skin of the hand. It sticks to the skin by means of two short arms situated above the upper legs; it feeds by means of a tubular snout. My secretary, Mr. Searle, informs me that vinegar allays the itching, and it is supposed kills them. I wish I had space to say something about the parasites which infest human beings, especially about that curious parasite the guinea-worm, or Dracunculus. Whales are troubled with parasites somewhat like bugs, with formidable hooked claws to hold on by; there are some fine specimens in my museum.

THE HORSE GADFLY, p. 125.-When Assistant-Surgeon to the 2nd Life Guards, it was my duty to attend field-days on Wormwood Scrubs. One very hot summer's morning my horse suddenly gave a great shudder, and seemed very much alarmed. At this moment I saw a fly buzzing about; the fly suddenly darted towards the horse's fore-legs, and almost quicker than the eye could follow planted a white egg inside the leg. This informed me how the horse gadfly breeds. I examined the egg; it was stuck on to the hair by some glutinous material; the horse. takes the eggs into his stomach by means of his tongue; they then gradually hatch out into queer-looking grubs, which fasten themselves on the sides of the horse's stomach by two hooks projecting from the mouth, and imbed themselves into the mucous coats of the stomach. I have frequently examined these; the mechanism of the hooks is most beautiful. once found the nostrils of a roedeer entirely blocked up by these grubs. It is a very curious thing that the fly never deposits its egg on a part not accessible to the horse's tongue.

BLUEBOTTLE FLIES, p. 125.-When I am at work in my dissecting room the pretty little bluebottles and other flies come to help It is wonderful how soon they find out what is going on. Though not a bluebottle may be seen about, two or three generally arrive in a minute or two. They help me much to make skele

me.

tons.

I once heard of a capital plan to find out the exact locale of a rat which had been poisoned and had died under the floor of a sitting-100m. A live bluebottle was turned loose; he hunted about the room and at last sat down exactly over the spot where the dead rat was. He found him out by the smell. This fly

saved a long carpenter's bill for pulling up the boards and putting them down again.

ELEPHANTS AND FLIES.-Regarding the balance of nature, showing how minute beings might be the destruction of gigantic things, my friend Mr. Bartlett remarks that in the native state flies are great enemies to elephants. If an elephant gets wounded, flies deposit their eggs in the wounds; these eggs turn into maggots, and ultimately cause the death of the animal.

FLIES AND CHOLERA.-H.B. writes :-" The Italians are not the only people in the world who say flies disappear before cholera. The Welsh had, and may still have, a like idea. I remember hearing my mother say that, when this scourge first visited South Wales, it stopped at an old farm called Kidwelly in Carmarthenshire, half-way between Llanelly and Carmarthen; that it raged badly in the former town, but Carmarthen was free; and that they used to watch the flies anxiously every morning, it having been noticed that in all places where the cholera was, the flies disappeared. I also remember hearing that it was recorded in some old deeds, the great plague had halted at or near Kidwelly, but Carmarthen has since within my recollection been visited by cholera; so I conclude the charm, with which old Merlin' was somehow associated, has been broken."

HOUSE-FLY MAGGOTS.-The maggots of the common house-fly (Musca domestica) occur abundantly in horse-manure. The late Dr. E. Stanley, Bishop of Norwich, remarks that "the number of house-flies might be greatly lessened in large towns, if the stable-dung, in which their larvæ are chiefly supposed to feed, were kept in pits closed by trap-doors, so that the flies could not deposit their eggs in it. At Venice, where no horses are kept, it is said there are no house-flies."

Mr. Davy breeds great numbers of maggots every year. He begins to breed them before the arrival of the soft-billed birds, so as to have maggots ready to feed them when first caught. By these means he has been able to rear some of the rarest of the soft-meat birds. He finds that in the early spring the flies will deposit their eggs in dead "birds," in preference to any kind of offal. They commence, as a rule, to " blow" at the nose and eyes first, and on a hot day the eggs will hatch out in fourteen or fifteen hours. The maggot, when ten days old, is ready for the birds. Maggots are used to tempt soft-meat birds to take their artificial food. When the eyes of a dead bird are once filled with fly-blows, another bluebottle coming also to deposit her eggs seems to know that the place has been already taken up; she

therefore does not attempt to lay any more eggs, but takes her departure. To keep gentles for the winter, Mr. Davy looks out for October fly-blows. He deposits the mature maggot in damp sand, and buries them in bottles in the ground. He finds this plan has the effect of preventing them from changing into the chrysalis state. By this means he is never without gentles for his birds summer and winter. An immense trade goes on in gentles for fishing-tackle shops; they are of nominal value in hot weather, but in early spring they are sometimes worth one penny a dozen. Maggots are easier of digestion by soft-meat birds than meal-worms. The skin of the meal-worms is hard, and contains much silica. Again, birds find gentles in a state of nature, but they do not find meal-worms.

PEACOCKS, p. 126.-I hear that peacocks are grand things to kill snakes and even vipers. My friend, Mr. A. D. Berrington, told me of an estate in Wales where vipers formerly abounded, and were a great nuisance till peacocks were turned down. These birds shortly killed off all the vipers. The peacock runs smartly in upon the viper, hits him hard with his beak and retires before the viper has a chance of striking with his fangs.

CALCULI, p. 126.-I have three fine calculi which I obtained from the colon of a brewer's horse. They are worn to fit each other; each is nearly the size of a cocoa-nut. The nucleus of one is a small piece of iron. I believe its composition is triplephosphate. Hair-balls from the stomachs of cows are not uncommon; I have several specimens, one especially from the stomach of a kangaroo. In the College of Surgeons is a hair calculus from the stomach of a young lady. This lady had long and beautiful hair; she was in the habit of biting off her hair and swallowing it; these hairs formed a calculus in her stomach, from which she died.

The bezoars of the ancients were taken from the true or fourth stomach of a kind of goat, the Capra Caucasia of the British Museum Catalogue.

STARLINGS ROOSTING, p. 132.-The Rev. R. S. Baker thus writes in Land and Water:-"Near my house (Hargrave, near Kimbolton) is a fox cover of five acres, the favourite rendezvous and resting-place of myriads of starlings, whither they have resorted now for several years in the winter months, beginning pretty early in the autumn. They gather here every evening about an hour before dark, coming in, in flocks of various sizes, from north, east, south, and west. Unless anyone saw them they would scarcely credit the myriads which assemble. There must be

hundreds of thousands, if not a million. And when we consider that each parish on an average harbours in the summer not more perhaps than twenty breeding pairs-say, with the young ones reared, 100 to each parish-it must take a vast number of parishes to make up the number collected at this centre every night. As a fact, I have often noticed towards evening, when some miles away from home, in whatever direction, flocks of starlings pass overhead in the direction of Hargrave. I may safely say that they fill a space, when all collected in one flock, of three or four acres, plane space, and fifty to a hundred feet in depth. They play all manner of aërial games round the neighbourhood for an hour before retiring to bed, and again on getting up in the morning, before dispersing to the four winds for the day. They wheel about in parties, or as a whole army, looking, in the latter case from a mile distant like a cloud, sometimes in the form of a great fish moving through the air. They gather on trees in the proximity of the cover till they are black and the branches bending down with the weight; and the talking they do is ceaseless and deafening. At a distance it sounds exactly like the noise of a cascade pouring over rocks, and this talking they continue long after they are gone to bed; nor does it quite cease till hours after dusk. I often wonder what they talk about so fast, and all at once-very likely of the events of the day, the fine fat grubs they have enjoyed, and the dangers they have escaped. At all events, they talk to us of a good Creator who made such myriads of happy creatures, to whom existence is one round of innocent mirth and active happiness, and of keen and varied enjoyment from sunrise to sunset, summer and winter. One night I listened whether the starlings subsided, in the dead of night, into perfect stillness. It was a moonlight night, between twelve and one a.m. So far from being still, I could hear their chatter still going on from my house, 300 yards from the fox cover, and on walking up to the coverside the murmur of a million sleeping starlings was curious to hear. It was like a subdued faint roar, mixed with the clear whistle of individual starlings. Starlings are possessed of great vital powers, and also muscular strength for their size. Watch them in the breeding season. Every spare minute they have is devoted to merry chuckling, chirping, whistling, and grimacing. They seem to me to be always laughing to themselves, and they have the power of the mocking-bird in imitating other birds. I have heard a wild starling imitate for fun the plaintive cry of a lapwing to perfection, also the chatter of an angry magpie, or the caw of a carrion crow. I have a respect for the starlings. They do no harm, except pulling the thatch about, and eating a few