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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



lows of trees and in old walls. They are very 

 active and very intelligent, but their intelli- 

 gence and activity seem to work always to 

 the harm of the farmers and housekeepers. 

 A merchant observed a venerable old mon- 

 goose in his warehouse, and set a trap for it. 

 He put a hen's egg in a position to be well 

 Been as bait, and under it concealed a spring 

 trap, right in the animal's road. The mon- 

 goose burrowed under the trap, threw it out 

 of gear, and managed so that the egg rolled 

 down to him. Yet some mongooses are 

 taken in traps, but not one in twenty of 

 them are females. The females are too busy 

 taking care of their families to be running 

 round ; and it is supposed that the males in 

 their depredations, besides satisfying their 

 own wants, provide for those of their mates 

 at home. 



The Sympsychograph. The Rev^ie Scien- 

 tijique concludes a summary of Prof. Jordan's 

 remarkable account of the sympsychograph 

 in the September number of the Monthly 

 with the remarks: "All this is very ingen- 

 iously constructed text and photograph 

 and falls in no way short in logic and rea- 

 soning of the habitual lucubrations of the 

 spirits : it is quite as plausible as a hundred 

 stories that have been told to us in all seri- 

 ousness. The only difference is that Mr. 

 Jordan has been amusing himself, and his 

 whole account is pure invention. The ' as- 

 tral cat' exists only in his imagination, as 

 the .'astral body' of the spirits is also un- 

 doubtedly imaginary ; but Mr. Jordan knows 

 this, while the spiritualists do not recognize 

 it. As a satire the story is very amusing ; 

 but it is certain that some persons will take 

 it seriously, and this will be not the least 

 amusing thing about it." 



The Fascination of Cycling. In the ef- 

 fort to account for the absorbing and endur- 

 ing pleasure of bicycling, which induces men 

 and women to spin for hours every day over 

 the same roads, with no apparent diminution 

 of their enjoyment, M. Ph. Tissier adduces 

 associations of ideas corresponding with the 

 frequent and quick changes of attitude to 

 which the wheelman is subject. There is a 

 limit, however, to these changes of position, 

 and it is not so far off but that they will bo- 

 come tiresome long before the bicyclist be- 



comes in fact tired of wheeling. M. Ch. du 

 Pasquier, in the Revue Scienfiftgue, looks for 

 the origin of the bicyclist's delight in the 

 pleasure of motion, augmented by the rider's 

 sense of control and mastery of the instru- 

 ment and of himself. The experiments of 

 Fere have proved that motion introduces 

 very real effects into our organisms. It 

 gives a kind of new force, and increases the 

 effect of an excitant, in proportions bearing 

 an approximate relation to its rapidity. This 

 force-giving action explains many other 

 things not otherwise accounted for such as 

 the pleasure of riding rapidly in a carriage, 

 of getting up into a high place, and the de- 

 light we take in games of strength and skill, 

 in agile exercises, wrestling, racing, combats, 

 etc. The activity begotten of the exercise 

 operates as a further stimulant ; and so the 

 rider goes on, with the breezes fanning his 

 cheeks, his whole organization, as Gratiolet 

 observes, " singing in various tones a hymn 

 of satisfaction and joy," till he is in danger 

 of exhaustion before he realizes that he is 

 becoming tired. In this last condition lies the 

 great danger of excessive cycling, which can 

 not be too carefully guarded against. M. du 

 Pasquier finds a serious defect in cycling in 

 its monotonous character. It is far excelled, 

 in his opinion, in variety of motions and ten- 

 sions by horseback riding, tennis, and fenc- 

 ing, which, besides bringing all the muscles 

 of the body into play, enforce the participa- 

 tion of the mind of attention, judgment, and 

 decision. The movement in cycling is stu- 

 pidly regulated by the mechanism, which 

 permits no further extension or flexion of the 

 limbs or the body ; the motions are all alike 

 in infinite repetitions, at least so long as the 

 " spin " endures. It follows that the mental 

 action can not be very elastic and the mental 

 images will not be lively or varied. The im- 

 pressions the cyclist receives are correspond- 

 ingly monotonous. Those thoughts can not 

 produce anything of value which are occu- 

 pied with the road that has been passed over, 

 with the miles that are yet to be covered, and 

 the time when the rider will get to his desti- 

 nation ; which are intent on keeping the rec- 

 ord he has made, or upon creating a new one. 

 Fere's remark bears upon this point that " the 

 effect of systematized excitation on a small 

 number of ideas is always bad," and that it 

 I is not healthy for the mind to be inactive in 



