POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



141 



themselves, who constructed several of the 

 more expensive pieces of apparatus. A 

 great deal can be done in tbis way. At the 

 very lowest computation, one half of the 

 apparatus might be extemporized by the 

 teacher, and, if (as was done in the town 

 under consideration) the construction of 

 every article were carefully explained to 

 the students, it would give them a grasp 

 and familiarity with the subject which they 

 could not otherwise obtain. The subject 

 being entirely new to every one of the 

 students, their attention was kept up, and 

 their interest in the work never allowed to 

 flag, by an unsparing use of the apparatus 

 in performing as many experiments as pos- 

 sible. It turned out, however, that those 

 students who were likely to fail at the 

 government examination would do so not 

 because their information was defective, 

 but because of their inability to put their 

 thoughts into writing. From want of prac- 

 tice they experience so much difficulty in 

 arranging their facts in intelligible sen- 

 tences, that one half of their available time 

 has passed before they have completed the 

 answer to the first question on the exami- 

 nation paper. This difficulty was got over 

 by giving the students questions to work 

 at home, and having a written examination 

 every month during the course of the ses- 

 sion. The result proved the efficacy of this 

 arrangement. Nearly sixty students have 

 been examined in the first stage of the 

 subject, and there has not been a single 

 failure." 



Japanese Archaeology. Tn a report of a 

 lecture by Professor E. S. Morse, published 

 in the " Tokio Times," we find the follow- 

 ing list of human bones found in the kitchen- 

 midden at Omori, their presence, together 

 with other circumstances, indicating, in the 

 opinion of the Professor, that the locality 

 was once inhabited by cannibals (see " Pop- 

 ular Science Monthly," vol. xiv., p. 257) : 

 Right humerus ; length of fragment, 195 

 millimetres ; proximal end gone. Left 

 humerus ; length of fragment, 215 mm. ; 

 both ends gone. Left humerus ; length of 

 fragment, 160 mm. ; both ends gone. Right 

 ulna ; length of fragment, 200 mm. ; distal 

 end gone. Right ulna ; length of fragment, 

 180 mm. ; both ends gone. Right radius ; 



length of fragment, 80 mm. ; upper portion 

 only. Right femur ; length of fragment, 

 150 mm. ; proximal end and portion of 

 shaft only. Right femur ; length of frag- 

 ment, 270 mm. ; both ends gone. Right 

 femur ; length of fragment, 280 mm. ; both 

 ends gone. Right femur ; length of frag- 

 ment, 107 mm. ; upper portion of shaft. 

 Right femur ; length of fragment, 304 mm. ; 

 articular surfaces broken; child. Left fe- 

 mur; length of fragment, 160 mm.; shaft 

 only. Left femur ; length of fragment, 270 

 mm. ; great trochanter and head and distal 

 end gone; child. Left femur; length of 

 fragment, 85 mm. ; lower portion only ; 

 articular surface gone ; child. Right tibia ; 

 length of fragment, 135 mm. ; upper portion 

 of shaft. Right fibula ; length of fragment, 

 205 mm. ; both ends broken. Fifth right 

 metatarsal ; length, 65 mm. ; distal articu- 

 lar surface partially gone. Left lower max- 

 illary. Left parietal. 



now the Humming-Bird feeds. Mr. A. 



R. Wallace's account of the way in which 

 the humming-bird takes its food, whether 

 nectar or insects, would appear to be er- 

 roneous in the light of the observations 

 made by W. H. Ballou, of Evanston, Il- 

 linois. According to Wallace, " the tubu- 

 lar and retractile tongue enables the bird 

 to suck up honey from the nectaries of 

 flowers, and also to capture small insects ; 

 but whether the latter pass down the tubes, 

 or are entangled in the fibrous tips and 

 thus drawn back into the gullet, is not 

 known." Mr. Ballou's observations are re- 

 corded in the " American Naturalist." He 

 attracted to his house two humming-birds 

 by a saucer of sirup placed on the window- 

 sill, to which the birds would come every 

 day to satisfy their hunger. They always 

 alighted on the edge of the saucer, and 

 lapped the sirup as a dog laps water. The 

 question whether insects " pass down the 

 tubes or are entangled in the fibrous tips 

 and are thus drawn back into the gullet" 

 was also solved by Mr. Ballou. Insects too 

 large to pass through these tubes being 

 placed in their way, the birds were observed 

 to take them as readily as smaller ones. 

 The insects were evidently secured by ad- 

 hesion to the saliva of the tongue-tips, and 

 thence drawn into the gullet. The author 



