iVA TURE NOTES i 15 



NATURE NOTES 



Telephone Poles and Forestry. According to the Forest Service, 

 there are in the United States 800,000 miles of telephone and telegraph 

 lines, requiring 32,000,000 poles; and these must be renewed approxi- 

 mately four times before trees suitable to take their place can be grown. A 

 pole lasts in the service about twelve years, on the average, but is made 

 from a tree about sixty years old. In other words, to maintain a continuous 

 supply five times as many trees must be growing in the forest as there are 

 poles in use. The severity of this drain upon forest resources by the 

 telephone and telegraph companies is obvious enough. Experiments to test 

 effect of proper seasoning and certain preservatives are being made. 



Coyotes. Bulletin No. 20 of the Biological Survey, U. S. Department 

 of Agriculture, deals with the small prairie w T olves of the western and south 

 western parts of North America which are commonly known by the Spanish 

 name " coyote." They are abundant in spite of the advancing civilization 

 which has driven so many wild animals from the western plains. Last year 

 Kansas paid bounty on 20,000 scalps at $1 each. The animals feed on many 

 animals, destroying farm animals, game birds, deer and antelope, and even 

 jack-rabbits. The swifter of the game animals are run down by packs of 

 coyotes. Among farm animals killed are named chickens, turkeys, cats, 

 young colts, calves, pigs, lambs, goats, and occasionally full grown cattle and 

 pigs. They are the most destructive enemies of sheep. The coyotes are 

 wary and not easily poisoned or trapped. The most successful and at the 

 same time most expensive remedy is fencing them out with wire-netting, 

 which costs $300 to $500 per mile. One sheep ranch of 4,000 acres in 

 California has been fenced. 



Spiders' Webs. To preserve for museum purposes spray with artist's 

 shellac, using a simple tube atomizer. Then press a clean glass plate against 

 the strands, which will stick, and carefully break the supporting threads. 

 When the shellac is dry another glass plate may be used as a cover and the 

 edges protected with gummed paper as in lantern slides. (F. E. Lutz, in 

 Science, Vol. 23, March 9, 1906). 



Incubation of the Emperor Penguin. The breeding habits of this 

 bird, the largest of the penguins, were observed by naturalists on the Dis- 

 covery which returned from the Antarctic to England, in September, 1904. 

 Each hen lays one large egg ; and a very remarkable fact is that the hen 

 standing in the characteristic upright position on the sea-ice holds the incuba- 

 ting egg on the feet, covered with the dense feathers of the abdomen, and 



