P OP ULAR MIS CULL ANY. 



711 



ing birds such an ancestral trait has persist- 

 ed. In certain instances where birds lay ex- 

 posed to view either white or light-tinted 

 eggs, or those not otherwise protectively 

 colored, they have the habit of covering the 

 clutch over with leaves, etc., when the in- 

 cubating parent temporarily quits the nest. 

 The eggs of birds, irrespective of the char- 

 acter of the coloration of . their plumage, 

 which habitually lay in inaccessible places, 

 are often either white or light-tinted and ex- 

 posed to view. Both the age of the bird 

 and the physical condition of its constitu- 

 tion at the time of laying an egg have their 

 influence upon the coloration of its shell. 

 Changes in the constitution may be due to 

 external causes, as fright, etc. ; or to inter- 

 nal causes, as disease, etc. The richest-col- 

 ored eggs of any species (that lay other eggs 

 than white ones) are laid by that species at 

 its prime. The positions of th egg as it 

 passes down the oviduct, as well as its mo- 

 tions, affect the pattern of its markings. 



The Great Siberian Railway. Of the 



'total length of nearly four thousand seven 

 hundred miles of the great Siberian Railway, 

 the rails are already laid over one thousand 

 and six miles, or sixty-eight miles more than 

 one fifth of the whole distance. In this are 

 counted the distances built from the eastern 

 end at Samara to the Irtysh opposite Omsk, 

 and at the western end from Vladivostok 

 along the Usuri River. There was some 

 doubt at first whether the road should fol- 

 low the northern route, where a railroad is 

 already built along the old caravan road, 

 through Ekaterinburg to Tyreman, on the 

 Tura, or on the southern line where the ad- 

 vantages of population and traffic in central 

 Siberia are more tempting. The southern 

 route was chosen, and the railway, starting 

 from Samara, passes through the densely 

 peopled parts of south Siberia to Ufa, at the 

 junction of the Byela and Ufa Rivers, thence 

 to Zlatoust, the center of the great iron and 

 gold mining district of the southern Urals, 

 when it crosses the mountains, and to Chlya- 

 bisk, on the borders of the prairies of south- 

 west Siberia ; thence to Omsk, the present 

 terminus, Tomsk, Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk, 

 Chita, and the southern coast of Lake Baikal. 

 Here a way will have to be cut through the 

 Tocky crags that rise abruptly from the wa- 



ters of the lake ; and between Chita and the 

 Amur a series of parallel ranges will have to 

 be crossed. Owing to the unfavorable char- 

 acter of the region for population, the rail- 

 way between the Amur and the Usuri will 

 probably remain for some time to come a 

 mere strategic line. 



Climate of the City of Mexico. A report 

 by the Director of the Meteorological Observ- 

 atory of Mexico, published by the director, 

 Senor M. Barcena, on the climate of that 

 city, gives the mean annual temperature as 

 59Y, and the monthly means as ranging 

 from 53-6 in December to 64-6 in May. 

 The absolute maxima in the shade vary from 

 73-4 in December to 88-9 in April, and the 

 absolute minima from 28*9 in December to 

 46-8 in August and September. The great- 

 est daily range amounted to 41 in the 

 month of March. The mean annual rainfall 

 amounted to 23*8 inches, the wettest months 

 being June and September. The greatest 

 fall in one day was 2 - 5 inches in August, 

 1888. The prevalent wind is northwest, 

 which blows during most of the year, and 

 that is the coldest and wettest quarter. The 

 strongest wind blows from the northeast. 

 The greatest hourly velocity observed was 

 about fifty-six miles an hour. The report is 

 based upon the hourly observations of the 

 sixteen years, 1877 to 1892. 



Lilian Island Snake. Peculiar to the 

 Luchu Islands is the poisonous Trimeresurus 

 snake, called habu by the natives, which is 

 described by Prof. B. H. Chamberlain, of the 

 Imperial University of Japan, as being four 

 or five feet long by two inches in diameter, 

 and u3 an object of universal fear and hatred. 

 It springs out at passers-by from the hedges, 

 where its habits lead it to lie in wait for 

 birds, and actually enters houses, so as to 

 make it perilous during the warm season to 

 walk about the house at night except with a 

 lantern. The general result of bites that do 

 not bring on death is lifelong crippling. Re- 

 wards are offered by the authorities for the 

 bodies of these snakes, dead or alive, and 

 the villagers go out in the woods to secure 

 them. Yet the number does not seem to 

 diminish perceptibly, and at least one case is 

 recorded within recent years of a village hav- 

 ing been abandoned by its inhabitants be- 



