284 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



dog in Cork was annoyed by a cur. He 

 took the animal, threw it over the dock, 

 then plunged in himself and saved its life. 

 Another Newfoundland dog was sent back 

 by its master with a key which was needed 

 at the house. It was attacked on its way 

 by a butcher's dog, but went on about its 

 business, paying no attention to the inter- 

 ruption. The key delivered, it stopped, on 

 its way back to its master, before the 

 butcher's shop, till the dog came out, then 

 attacked it and killed it The story has be- 

 come an old one of the elephant that cracked 

 a cocoa-nut on the head of a man who had 

 cracked one on its skull, and killed him. 

 Of another elephant and he was called 

 " the fool/' it is said that a quartermaster 

 threw a tent-pin at him. A few days later, 

 the animal came upon the quartermaster, 

 lifted him up in his trunk, and put him in a 

 large tree, to get down as best he could. 

 Another elephant was treated to some nuts 

 by a visitor who ended by giving him some 

 so hot that they burned him. In his agony, 

 he drank six pails of water, then threw the 

 pail at the visitor. The two met a year 

 afterward, when the joker offered his nuts 

 again. The elephant ate with relish till the 

 hot nuts appeared, then took the joker by 

 the coat-tails and held him up till the cloth 

 gave way and the man fell to the ground. 

 The elephant proceeded to eat the nuts in 

 the coat-pockets, then tore up the coat-tails 

 and threw the pieces after the owner. The 

 last story is of a monkey, which, being 

 caught stealing a friar's grapes, had to wear 

 a weight on its tail. Afterward, while the 

 friar was performing mass at the church, 

 the monkey climbed to the roof of his cell, 

 and with the weight on its tail broke all the 

 tiles. 



Egyptian Funeral-Wreaths restored. 



Dr. Schweinfurth writes that he has exam- 

 ined the wreaths which were deposited with- 

 in the coffin of Aahmes I, King of Egypt, 

 of the eighteenth dynasty, whose mummy 

 is now in the museum at Boolak, and has 

 found them to be composed of the flowers 

 of the Acacia Nilotica, the Nymphaa ccrulea 

 (isolated petals), the Alcea ficifolia, and a 

 Delphinium, or larkspur, which he sup- 

 poses to be orientate. The wreaths of the 

 other kings, whose mummies were associ- 



ated with that of Aahmes, contained flowers 

 of Cartkamus tinctoria and leaves of the 

 Mimusops hummel. Leaves of the water- 

 melon were found in one of the coffins. A 

 number of the flowers and leaves have been 

 restored to their shape by moistening them, 

 dipping them in alcohol, and spreading and 

 drying them ; and by this means has been 

 obtained an herbarium of thirty-five-hun- 

 dred-years-old specimens. The color of the 

 chlorophyl, violet in the larkspur, green in 

 the watermelon-leaf, is preserved to a re- 

 markable degree. The Egyptian willow, of 

 the twigs of which the framework of the 

 wreath was composed, the Acacia Nilotica, 

 and the Nymphcea cerulea, still grow wild 

 in Egypt as well as in tropical Africa. The 

 Mhnusops hummel has been observed in 

 modern times only in Abyssinia, while the 

 larkspur (Delphinium, orientale) is diffused 

 all over the East, but is cultivated in North- 

 ern Africa as an ornamental plant. The 

 Cartkamus is still cultivated as a dye-plant 

 in the East and in Egypt. Besides the 

 wonderful preservation of delicate flowers 

 and their colors, this " find " affords new 

 examples of species, both wild and culti- 

 vated, which have suffered no variation 

 during a long series of ages. Aahmes I, on 

 whose mummy most of these flowers were 

 found, reigned about 1800 b. c. 



Insect Organs of Smell. Gustav Hau- 

 ser, of Erlangen, has made the organs of 

 smell of insects the subject of his studies. 

 That they are related to the antenna is 

 shown quite clearly by several experiments. 

 Glass rods dipped in oil of turpentine or 

 acetic acid, when brought near to insects, 

 caused them to move their antennae and 

 turn quickly around ; but, when the antennas 

 were cut off, the same insects showed no 

 signs of sensation, although the substances 

 were brought close up to them. Flies with 

 their antenna? cut off paid no attention to 

 putrid meat, although they had previously 

 been strongly attracted by it. Varnishing 

 the antenna? with paraffine was followed by 

 a similar insensibility. Herr Hauser's con- 

 clusion is that the organs of smell of most 

 insects consist, first, of a stout nerve pro- 

 ceeding from the brain-ganglion, and run- 

 ning along the antennae ; second, of a per- 

 ceptive terminal apparatus, represented by 



