POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



137 



broods of the fly are produced in a year, the 

 first laying its eggs in April and May, the 

 second in August and September. The dam 

 age is done by the larva, which lies at the 

 sheathing base of the leaves first above the 

 roots, at or near the surface of the soil, and 

 absorbs the sap from the stalks. From the 

 larva, the insect passes into the pupa state, 

 in which it resembles a flaxseed, and re- 

 mains in it for the five winter months. The 

 pest flourishes best in rather warm and moist 

 seasons ; and it has been noticed that the 

 years when it has been most abundant have 

 been characterized by weather answering to 

 that description. It is afflicted by several 

 parasites by which it is said that nine tenths 

 of every generation of the insects are de- 

 stroyed. The principal parasites are a chal- 

 cid fly that destroys the pupa, and a platy- 

 gaster, which lays its eggs in the e^g. Pro- 

 fessor Packard recommends, as remedies for 

 the insect, late sowing of fall wheat, so that 

 the flies may be killed by frost before lay. 

 ing their eggs, high culture to give the plant 

 new vigor, the sowing of the most vigorous 

 and many-stooled varieties, and pasturing, 

 which destroys the " flaxseeds," but is " a 

 rather rude, uncertain remedy." Special 

 remedies like limeing, dusting, burning stub- 

 ble, etc., are not recommended, because they 

 are inferior to those just mentioned, and 

 are as likely to destroy the helpful para- 

 sites as the harmful flies. A comparison of 

 the periods when the flies have been most 

 abundant indicates that the plague has cul- 

 minating periods in the neighborhood of 

 twenty-five years apart. 



Folk-Lore of the Mammoth. Baron 

 Xordenskiold, in his " Voyage of the Vega," 

 gives some interesting citations of the folk- 

 lore of the Siberian natives respecting the 

 mammoth, whose remains are very abundant 

 in the country. Evert Yssbrants Ides, a 

 Russian embassador in 1692, related that 

 the heathen Yakuts, Tunguses, and Osti- 

 aks, supposed that the mammoth always 

 lived in. the earth and went about in it, 

 however hard the ground might be frozen, 

 and that it died when it came so far up that 

 it saw or smelled the air. J. B. Miiller, in 

 1720, added that the tusks were believed to 

 have formed the animal's horns, that they 

 were fastened above the eyes and were 



movable, and that with them the animal 

 dug a way for itself through the mud ; when 

 it came to a sandy soil, the sand ran to- 

 gether so that the mammoth stuck fast and 

 perished. Miiller further stated that many 

 natives assured him that they themselves 

 had seen such animals in large grottoes in 

 the Ural Mountains. Klaproth says that 

 the Chinese at Kiakhta considered mammoth 

 ivory the tusks of the giant rat, tien-shu, 

 which is found only in the cold regions 

 along the coast of the Polar Sea, avoids the 

 light, and lives in dark holes in the interior 

 of the earth. Some of the literati believed 

 that the discovery of these immense earth- 

 rats niurht even explain the orisrin of earth- 

 quakes. The horns and crania of the rhi- 

 noceros, which were found along with the 

 remains of the mammoth, were believed to 

 have belonged to gigantic birds, concerning 

 which stories were related analogous to those 

 told of the roc in the "Arabian Nights." 

 Pieces of the horns were used to increase 

 the elasticity of bows, and were believed to 

 exert a beneficial effect on the arrow, and to 

 tend to make it hit the mark. Ermann and 

 Middledorf suppose that the finds of these 

 remains two thousand years ago gave occa- 

 sion to Herodotus's account of the Arimaspi 

 and the gold-guarding dragons. Certain 

 it is that during the middle ages such " grip- 

 claws " were preserved as of great value in 

 the treasuries and art collections of the time, 

 and that they gave rise to many a romantic 

 story in the folk-lore, both of the "West and 

 the East. Even in our own century, Heden- 

 strom, in 1830, otherwise an intelligent 

 traveler, believed that the fossil rhinoceros- 

 horns were actual "grip-claws." 



Water-Temperatures at the Top and Bot- 

 tom of Lakes. Professor William Ripley 

 Xichols has obtained, from the examination 

 of the relative temperatures of the surface 

 and the depths of fresh-water ponds near 

 Boston, Massachusetts, results that differ 

 from the views on this subject that are 

 commonly held and taught. In Fresh Pond 

 and Mystic Pond considerable difference 

 was shown to exist in the temperature at 

 the top and at the bottom, and the tempera- 

 ture appeared to decrease regularly from 

 top to bottom. Having compared his own 

 observations with those made in Swiss and 



