374 NATURE-STUDY REVIEW 



All adders of North America are harmless. (The only poisonous 

 British reptile is the common adder of Europe, Vipera berus). 

 The Puffing Adder is protected by his "puffing." The Milk 

 Adder or Milk Snake searches around barns and old cellars for 

 rats and mice thereby performing friendly acts for the farmer. 

 The name of this snake comes from a reputation of stealing milk. 

 Ditmars writes that he cannot be induced to drink milk unless 

 suffering from great thirst and goes on to mention that if the 

 snake should drink its full it could not consume more than two 

 teaspoonfuls. Snake facts and snake fancies are therefore quite 

 remote. 



Scientists believe that man descended from ? (Supply 



the missing word). 



No scientist believes that man descended from Monkey. 58% 

 of the students in college and normal school nevertheless think 

 that such is the case. What many scientists do think is that 

 Man and Monkey probably came from a common ancestry. 

 Zoologically they belong to the same group. From a structural 

 point of view man differs less from the apes than they do from 

 other monkeys. 



Scientists believe that animals originated from ? 



Scientists do not believe that animals descended from plants. 

 They are supposed to have come from a common ancestry. There 

 are organisms which cannot be classified as either plants or animals. 



Rabbits should be lifted by the ? 



There is no more logic in thinking that a rabbit should be lifted 

 by the ears than that a cat should be lifted by the tail or a baby 

 by one leg. The tail of a cat is a convenient handle for lifting her 

 but she has taught us that it is not good form. The rabbit has 

 suffered by not having such an effective means of communication. 



The existing notions may be classified as follows: 



Ears Feet Neck Body 



College and Normal School 56% 4% 12% 3% 



High School 85% 4% 3% 1% 



College Freshmen, male 78% 4% 2% 



College Freshmen, female 54% 4% 16% 2% 



High School, male 94% 3% 



High School, female 73% 10% 



The following conclusions may be drawn from the above table : 

 The majority of people believe that rabbits should be lifted by 

 the ears. (The function of the ears is to hear). This belief is 



