Geoffrey Watkins Smith

“ The dark centre of the poppy, where the sexual products are matured, is encircled by a broad open tent of crimson, which flashes from its walls the most potent of the sun's rays. If we are to compute the circumstances favourable to the certain and speedy occurrence of the chemical action which brings about the maturation of pollen and ova, we cannot neglect this factor of colour. ”

“ The number of degrees lying between the critical point and the normal freezing-point is complicatedly dependent on the rapidity of cooling, but the alternatives are so various that it is impossible at present to draw any concise conclusion with regard to them. It is an extremely interesting discovery that males have normally a greater difference between their critical and normal freezing-points than females ”

“ On the 24th a solitary Herring Gull was battling with a strong south wind above St. Catherine's Hill. The Dabchicks leave us about now, and are never seen so high up the river during the rest of the year. ”

“ In water-meads (Winchester) this month shows very little change in bird-life from the last. The Common Gulls still remain with us, but L. argentatus has not paid a visit during the whole month. Mr. Kelsall, writing to me of sea-birds in the New Forest, says:—"There is a large pond in my parish about four miles from the sea which the Gulls visit every day in summer—Herring Gulls, I think. The forest people say that the Cormorants fly daily to Salisbury! They often pass over us. Our Gulls are not seen here in winter; perhaps they go further afield when they have no eggs or young. ”

“ The emissive and absorptive radiant powers of a substance are directly proportional—a good radiator is a good absorber; it must also be remembered that a good reflector of radiant heat is a bad absorber and radiator, and vice versâ. It has for long been pointed out that a dark coloured animal would be able to take advantage of sunshine more readily than a light coloured one, and Lord Walsingham used this fact in explaining certain phenomena of melanism in Lepidoptera. ”

“ Naturalists whose pleasure it is to try and enter sympathetically into the conditions and capacities of all living things will be greatly interested in an account which Prof. Bachmetjew, of Sophia, has published of his experiments on the temperature of insects. ”

“ The dusky mountain Argus, gathering radiant energy in its wings and body on a sunny slope, at the onset of an alpine storm creeps into the cover of the thick grass, where radiation from its body-surface is not so rapid as in the open air ”

“ This process of under-cooling and freezing does not cause death on the first occasion, but, if the process be repeated for a second time, the insect dies when the critical point is reached for a second time. ”

“ On the 23rd the Rooks first began to collect twigs for repairing their nests; they were very quarrelsome, and one bird was killed in a scuffle and fell down dying into meads. On the 24th I saw a company of about two hundred Wood Pigeons in a ploughed field bordering a wood at Whitchurch. Both species of Wagtail decreased steadily in numbers as the month progressed; during the whole winter neither species has been so numerous as as in former years. ”

“ This fact applies to all our winter visitants in the upper water-meads; they seem to come nearer the town during winter, and to distribute themselves more widely for the breeding season. The Reed Buntings, for instance, at the end of this month, have moved away to their breeding haunts a few miles down the river. Thus we have such birds as the Wagtails, Buntings, Dabchicks, &c, performing regular migrations on a small scale.
On the 25th a Thrush's nest was found with three eggs, and three Blackbirds' nests had eggs in two cases and young birds in the third. All the nests were in evergreens. ”