The Zoologist/4th series, vol 6 (1902)/Issue 734/Editorial Gleanings
EDITORIAL GLEANINGS.
We read in a recent number of the 'Athenæum':—"Not content with his immense Shakespearian labours, Dr. Horace Howard Furness has caught the largest recorded Tarpon (246 lb.), landing his fish in thirty minutes, and returning it, like a sportsman, to the water as being inedible."
[Tarpon atlanticus is now a well-known fish to those anglers who can follow their craft on another continent. Jordan and Evermann gives its range as "Long Island to Brazil," and its weight as from 30 to 110 pounds ('Fishes of North and Middle America,' p. 409). Evermann and Marsh, however, in their Report on 'The Fishes of Porto Rico,' state that this fish reaches a weight of "30 to more than 300 pounds. The largest one recorded as taken on a hook weighed 209 pounds, and the largest taken with the harpoon weighed 383 pounds, if we may believe the record; but examples weighing over 100 pounds are not often seen."—Ed.]
A month in a lighthouse should be an experience in the life of anyone, but more especially of an ornithologist, versed in and still studying the migration of birds. Mr. W. Eagle Clarke passed the time between the 18th of September and the 19th of October in the Eddystone Lighthouse, and his ornithological observations have recently been published in the 'Ibis.' It is obviously impossible to condense the information given in this paper to the dimensions of our present space, but we notice an interesting and apparently unrecorded fact, that the Herring-Gull feeds exclusively[1] on seaweed, especially on the kind known as "sea-thongs" (Himanthalia lorea). The "mesmeric influence" of the light was found to exercise its greatest force on the Starling, and, after that bird, on the Sky-Lark. The prevalence of rain is evidently a matter of indifference to migratory birds, but the presence of fog has a contrary effect, though this may be largely due to the noise made by the explosions of tonite which takes place every five minutes on the lighthouse during a fog.
An egg of the Moa was recently offered for sale at the well-known London Auction Rooms. The 'Daily Chronicle' has printed an interesting paragraph anent this egg:—
"Messrs. Arthur G. Eve and Co., Australian merchants, write to correct the statement that a Moa's egg was sold in London a few days ago for 200 guineas. That amount was bid, but, as the reserved price was not reached, the egg was not sold. Although this egg must have been lying embedded in the banks of the Molyneaux Kiver, N.Z., for some hundreds of years, it is practically perfect. The egg was found by miners, who, in carefully exploring the river bank, detected it lying on a bed of loam, probably originally exposed, but, when found, covered by river drift. There is (our correspondents say) but one other 'whole' egg of Moa in the world. There is a complete skeleton of the bird in the Melbourne Zoo, and as it stands it is about 12 ft. in height."
In the 'Avicultural Magazine' for this month, Mr. George Carrick, in a description of a "live bird" expedition to Australia, states that in lat. 39° 03' S., long. 26° 46' E., 306 miles from the nearest land, and almost due south of Port Elizabeth, South Africa, a common Nightingale flew on board the steamer by which he travelled. The bird "was immediately captured and caged, and, with a plentiful supply of mealworms, he was soon quite at home, and seemed most thankful for the little kindness shown him, taking readily to artificial food." The bird was ultimately left safe and well at Melbourne.
Mr. G.H. Verrall has published a second edition of his 'List of British Diptera.' In the first List, published in 1888, 2500 species were enumerated; but of these 170 have been since expurgated, while 427 have been added, and 130 are included in the British fauna for the first time in the present edition, making a total of 2887 species; and it is considered there would be little trouble in bringing up the enumeration to 3000 species.
The recent death of Mr. Samuel Butler, the author of 'Erewhon,' commands comment in 'The Zoologist.' He was the son of a country clergyman, and grandson of the well-known scholar and headmaster of Shrewsbury, who was afterwards Bishop of Lichfield, and was fond of telling how his grandfather had attacked Darwin's grandfather, that his father had been in controversy with Darwin's father, and he seemed to regard himself as Darwin's hereditary enemy, showing his hostility by the publication of his vindication of Lamarck.
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
Public domainPublic domainfalsefalse