MISCELLANY 



379 



plantain-stalks, each ornamented with flow- 

 ers. After this, let the doctor make an 

 offering of nine silver coins, nine handfuls 

 of rice, nine ceri-leaves, and nine betel- 

 nuts, placing a set of each on the several 

 floats, in honor of the teacher of medicine. 

 Then he is to launch the floats into the 

 river, mould his paste composition into 

 slugs, gild the slugs, and apply them to the 

 wound." Another way of treating snake- 

 bites is the use of enchantments for calling 

 the snake which gave the wound to suck 

 the poison out. " For this purpose, fill three 

 bottles with proof-spirits, then let the doctor 

 repeat the form of incantation, drinking one 

 of the bottles of spirits up, while he en- 

 chants over it. If the snake does not come, 

 the doctor is to drink a second bottle, pro- 

 ceeding in the same way ; and if, on con- 

 suming the third bottle, the serpent still 

 declines to appear, the patient must die. 

 But, should the snake present himself, let 

 the doctor take three cowries in his hand, 

 and seven times rehearse a set form of in- 

 cantation till he has charmed the snake to 

 come to his left side. Then the poison is 



to be brushed from the wound with a hand- 



t 



ful of meyon-leaves seven times, and the 

 patient, if he can be got to eat a betel, will 

 recover." Civilized practice, it may be ob- 

 served, does not stop with three bottles of 

 spirits, but continues the drinking till the 

 snakes appear ! 



Fossil Remains of the Moa. Accord- 

 ing to the Melbourne Argus, a number of 

 bones of the moa have been discovered 

 near Hamilton, New Zealand. The moa 

 has never been seen alive since about the 

 year 1650. Tradition describes it as a 

 stupid, fat, indolent bird, living in forests 

 and mountain-fastnesses, and feeding on 

 vegetable food. The moa seems to have 

 been extirpated for the sake of its flesh, 

 feathers, and bones. The natives used the 

 bones for making fish-hooks, and the skull 

 was employed as a receptacle for holding 

 tattooing- powder. Captain Hutton, the 

 provincial geologist, has lately visited the 

 locality where the bones were discovered, 

 and ascertained from personal observation 

 that an accumulation of these bones exists, 

 in a tolerable state of preservation, in a 

 swamp about a mile and a half east of Hamil- 



ton. Mixed with the moa-bones were found 

 skeletons of the aptornis, a large bird, re- 

 sembling a swan. There are also the bones 

 of some smaller birds, and these will prove 

 of peculiar value, as hitherto paleontologi- 

 cal research has not offered much informa- 

 tion as to the kind of small birds which 

 were contemporaneous with the moa. It 

 is estimated that about five or six wagon- 

 loads of bones lie in the swamp at Hamilton. 



The Pitcher-Plant. In a paper read 

 at the American Association, Prof. C. V. 

 Riley gives the following description of the 

 pitcher-plant (Sarracenia) : The leaf of this 

 plant is a trumpet-shaped tube, with an 

 arched lid, covering more or less complete- 

 ly the mouth. The inside is furnished with 

 a perfect chevaux-de-frise of retrorse bris- 

 tles, commencing suddenly about an inch 

 from the base ; thence decreasing in size 

 until, about the middle to the mouth, they 

 are so short, dense, and compact, as to 

 form a decurved pubescence, which is per- 

 fectly smooth and velvety to the touch, 

 especially as the finger passes downward. 

 Running up the front of the trumpet is a 

 broad wing, with a hardened border, part- 

 ing at the top and extending around the 

 rim of the pitcher. Along this border, but 

 especially for a short distance within the 

 mouth, and less conspicuously within the 

 lid, there exude drops of a sweetened, 

 viscid fluid, which, as the leaf matures, is 

 replaced by a white, papery, tasteless sedi- 

 ment, or efflorescence, while at the smooth 

 bottom of the pitcher is a limpid fluid, pos- 

 sessing toxic qualities. The insects which 

 perish in this liquid are numerous, and of 

 all orders, but ants are the principal vic- 

 tims. The plant, however, is omnivorous 

 as regards insects, and Prof. Riley has 

 found in the fluid, at the bottom of the 

 pitcher, katydids, locusts, crickets, cock- 

 roaches, flies, moths, and even butterflies, 

 in a more or less recognizable condition. 



Effects of the Glacial Epoch on the Dis- 

 tribution of Insects. In a paper entitled 

 " On Allied Species of Noctuidae inhabiting 

 Europe and America," Buffalo, October, 

 1874, Mr. Grote says : " For the origin of 

 certain species we shall have to go back- 

 ward to the Pleistocene, and consider the 



