14* 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



thinks that the tubes of the tongue connect 

 with the lungs rather than with the diges- 

 tive passage. These interesting observa- 

 tions were abruptly terminated one day by 

 the coming of a third " hummer" a male 

 who drove the others from the window, 

 and, in a fit of rage, darted at one of them, 

 and thrust his bill well through its body ; 

 both then fell to the ground dead. 



Wines as Iatoxicants. Supposing two 

 wines, a white wine and a red, to contain 

 the same proportion of alcohol, may the 

 one be more intoxicating than the other ? 

 That such is the case appears from a com- 

 munication to the London " Spectator " by 

 Samuel James Capper, who declares it to 

 be an incontestable fact that in all white- 

 wine districts, and of course in all cider- 

 producing countries, drunkenness is much 

 more prevalent than where red wine is 

 grown. Mr. Capper quotes the observa- 

 tions of a lady who was in the habit of 

 spending six months of the year in a cha- 

 teau on the Loire, while the other six 

 months were spent on an estate near Di- 

 nan. " She assured me," writes Mr. Cap- 

 per, " that the difference in the matter of 

 sobriety was most marked between the 

 peasants on the Loire, whose habitual bev- 

 erage was red wine, and the Normans and 

 Bretons, who drink cider, to the exclusion 

 of everything else, even water." He adds 

 that " in the Pays de Vaud the abundant 

 supply of white wine is admitted by all 

 thoughtful inhabitants to be a great curse. 

 Very few laboring men attain old age, their 

 nervous systems breaking down entirely, 

 through their intemperate use of the prod- 

 uct of the smiling vineyards that line the 

 shores of Lake Leman. An hotel proprie- 

 tor of great experience assured me that he 

 found it better in every way to supply his 

 servants and laborers with a cheap red wine 

 from France than to let them drink the 

 white wine of the country." Mr. Capper 

 accounts for the difference in the effects of 

 red and white wine by the fact that the 

 former is very rich in tannin, which is ab- 

 sent in the latter. The tannin exercises an 

 astringent influence, and clones the pores of 

 the stomach, thus preventing the alcohol 

 from going straight to the brain, as it does 

 in the case of white wine. 



Grief in a Chimpanzee. That the chim- 

 panzee is capable of feeling grief, regret 

 for the death of a companion, Mr. A. E. 

 Brown holds to be proved by the beha- 

 vior of the surviving one of a pair of those 

 animals kept for some time in the Zoologi- 

 cal Garden of Philadelphia. The animals 

 had been very much attached to each 

 other ; they never quarreled, and, if occa- 

 sion required one to be handled with any 

 degree of force, the other was always pre- 

 pared to take its part. After the death of 

 the female, her consort made many at- 

 tempts to rouse her, and when this was 

 found to be impossible his rage and -grief 

 were piteous. Tearing the hair, or rather 

 snatching at the short hair on his head, had 

 always been one of his common expressions 

 of extreme anger, and he was now seen to 

 do this frequently; but the ordinary yell 

 of rage which he set up at first finally 

 changed to a cry before unheard by the 

 keeper, and which may be represented by 

 hah ah ah ah ah, uttered somewhat 

 under the breath, and with a plaintive 

 sound like a moan. He made repeated ef- 

 forts to awaken his dead companion, lift- 

 ing up her head and hands, pushing her 

 violently, and rolling her over. After the 

 body had been removed from the cage he 

 became more quiet, and remained so as 

 long as his keeper was with him, but, catch- 

 ing sight of the body once when the door 

 was opened, and again when it was carried 

 past the front of the cage, he became vio- 

 lent, and cried for the rest of the day. The 

 day following he sat still most of the time 

 and moaned continually ; but this gradually 

 passed away, and from that time forward 

 he has manifested a sense of a change in 

 his surroundings only by a more devoted at- 

 tachment to his keeper and a longer fit of 

 anger when he leaves him. 



Sensibility of the Eye to Light. A high- 

 ly interesting series of experiments on the 

 sensibility of the eye to light is described 

 by Charpentier, in a communication to the 

 Paris Academy of Sciences. With the aid 

 of a special apparatus for graduating at 

 will the intensity of the incident rays, he 

 finds that if the intensity be gradually in- 

 creased from zero the sensation is devel- 

 oped after a certain minimum degree has 



