FRAGMENTS OF SCIENCE. 



39 



shooting clay bullets, and used for catching 

 birds. The women make bags of netting, 

 and hammocks. They have superstitions 

 about their food, among which is the pro- 

 hibition of deer flesh to the women, who 

 have to satisfy themselves with birds and 

 small game ; and of the eggs of the South 

 American ostrich to the children. The 

 Caduveos, Mbaryas, or Guaycuru, are a war- 

 like and agricultural people, with fixed resi- 

 dences, and have the art of weaving, excel 

 in pottery, and execute designs of wonderful 

 beauty and variety. These qualities are re- 

 garded by the author as real results of a 

 logical study of the harmony and aesthetic 

 combination of lines and figures, and not 

 of accidental combinations. Ornamental de- 

 signs are painted on their skins with tlie 

 juice of a plant producing a blue-black 

 color, which penetrates the epidermis a little 

 way, and lasts six or seven days. It is ap- 

 plied by women, with small sticks, to the 

 end of which tufts of cotton wool are some- 

 times tied. The effect of the painting is 

 often heightened by adding powdered char- 

 coal to the juice. The people wear their 

 hair short and well combed and greased ; 

 file their upper incisor teeth to a point; 

 practice depilation ; are very cleanly, bath- 

 ing often ; and wear decorous clothing and 

 tasteful ornaments. 



A Hniaorons Elephant. In illustration 

 of the sense of the humorous in elephants, 

 Meredith Nugent, in Our Animal Friends, 

 tells a story of an elephant in the Jardin des 

 Plcmtes, in Paris, that was kept in the same 

 inclosure with a large hippopotamus, for 

 whose comfort and amusement a great stone 

 basin had been constructed and filled with 

 water. " It was quite early in the morning 

 before the hour for admitting the public 

 to the garden when I noticed the elephant 

 walking around on the stone edge of the 

 basin curiously watching the hippopotamus, 

 which was completely under water. I felt 

 quite sure that the elephant was up to some 

 prank, and I was not mistaken, for just as 

 soon as the ears of the hippopotamus came 

 into view the elephant quickly seized one of 

 them with his trunk and gave it a sudden 

 pull. The enraged hippopotamus lifted his 

 ponderous head clear out of the water and 

 snorted and blew, but every time he rose to 



take breath the elephant would recommence 

 his antics. Around and around the great 

 quadruped would go, keeping a sharp lookout 

 for the little ears of the hippopotamus, 

 which he would instantly seize the moment 

 they appeared. His evident delight in teas- 

 ing his huge neighbor was very comical, and 

 there is no doubt that he thoroughly enjoyed 

 it. Again, one day the keeper placed some 

 food for the hippopotamus in the corner of 

 the inclosure, and at once the animal began 

 to leave the water to get it ; but the elephant 

 slowly ambled over to the same corner and, 

 arriving there first, placed his four feet over 

 the favorite food in such a way that the 

 hippopotamus could not get at it, gently 

 swayed his trunk back and forth, and acted 

 altogether as though he were there accident- 

 ally, until the garden was thrown open to the 

 public, and he went forward to receive the 

 daily contributions of bread, cake, pie, etc., 

 which were always offered him by his hosts 

 of admirers." 



The Future of Wood Engraving. Not- 

 withstanding the apparently almost universal 

 supplanting of the old methods of engraving 

 by process illustration, Mr. W. Biscombe 

 Gardner affirms that wood engraving was 

 never more alive as a fine art or in a higher 

 state of perfection than it is at the present 

 period ; " and it is still capable, in the hands 

 of right, good, earnest workers, of being lifted 

 to a much higher position." Process may 

 hold the advantage for work that has to be 

 done in a rush, and for that in which cheap- 

 ness rather than quality is sought, but " wood 

 engraving as a reproductive fine art never can 

 be touched and never will be touched by 

 any process yet invented." It is even " far 

 and away " above any of the higher fine-art 

 processes " in its marvelous versatility of 

 technique, which enables the engraver to 

 translate not only the value but the very in- 

 dividual touch of each artist from whose 

 picture he may be engraving. All processes 

 dependent upon photography are bound to 

 go wrong in the rendeiiug of values, since 

 photography has not yet been brought to 

 such a state of perfection as to master the 

 difficulties of exact color translation. In 

 fact, photography is utterly inadequate in 

 the most simple wash drawings in black and 

 white." While it is admitted that a peu-and- 



