NOTES. 



783 



ber of births being 786,858 one in 34. 

 In the same year the births in Scotland 

 were 115,514, and only 312 infants under 

 one year one in 3*70 fell victims to con- 

 vulsions. This striking difference in the 

 mortality statistics of the two countries is 

 accounted for in a report of the Scottish 

 Registrar-General by the difference between 

 the English and the Scottish modes of rear- 

 ing infants. "The English," he writes, 

 " are in the habit of stuffing their babies 

 with spoon-meat almost from birth, while 

 the Scotch, excepting in cases where the 

 mother is delicate, or the child is out nurs- 

 ing, wisely give nothing but the mother's 

 milk till the child begins to cut its teeth." 

 The statistics of infantile deaths from 

 diarrhoea may also be adduced as an argu- 

 ment in favor of the Scottish system. In 

 England more than twice as many infants 

 die of this disorder than in Scotland. 



On comparing these statistics with those 

 of the last United States census, it will be 

 seen that the chances of life for infants in 

 their first year are far more favorable in 

 this country than in England, though not so 

 favorable as in Scotland. In the year end- 

 ing May 31, 18*70, there were born in the 

 United States 1,100,475 children. Of these 

 there died, during the same year 4,SG3 by 

 convulsions, and 1,534 by diarrhoea, or one 

 in 236 from the former cause, and one in 

 724 from the latter. In England the deaths 

 from diarrhoea amounted to 138 in 100,000 

 infants, and in Scotland to 66 in the same 

 number. It will be seen, on computation, 

 that the proportion of deaths from this 

 cause are by a very small fraction less in 

 the United States than in Scotland. But 

 now are we to attribute these very credita- 

 ble results to our more rational system of 

 rearing children, or to the better social con- 

 dition of the population here ? 



Snakes swallowing their Young. The 



question, " Do snakes swallow their young ?" 

 that is, give them shelter in the maternal 

 stomach when danger threatens, was dis- 

 cussed in a paper presented to the Ameri- 

 can Association by G. Brown Goode. The 

 author some time since asked, through the 

 public press, for testimony bearing on this 

 subject, and he now comes forward with 

 what appears to be perfectly satisfactory 

 evidence in favor of the affirmative side. 



He has the testimony of fifty-six witnesses 

 who saw the young enter the parent's 

 mouth. Of these fifty-six, nineteen testify 

 that they heard the parent snake warning 

 her young of danger by a loud whistle. 

 Two of the witnesses waited to see the young 

 emerge again from their refuge, after the 

 danger was past ; and one of them went 

 again and again to the snake's haunt, ob- 

 serving the same act on several successive 

 days. Four saw the young rush out when 

 the parent was struck ; eighteen saw the 

 young shaken out by dogs, or escaping from 

 the mouth of their dead parent. These tes- 

 timonies are confirmed by the observations 

 of scientific men, such as Prof. Smith, of 

 Yale College, Dr. Palmer, of the Smithsonian 

 Institution, and others. 



NOTES. 



The year 1759, which witnessed the 

 completion of the Eddystone Lighthouse, 

 closed with tremendous storms, and the 

 courage of the light-keepers was tested to 

 the utmost. A biography of John Smeaton, 

 the builder of .the Eddystone, states that 

 for twelve days the sea ran over them so 

 much that they could not open the door of 

 the lantern, or any other door. "The 

 house did shake," said one of the keepers, 

 " as if we had been up a great tree. The 

 old men were frightened out of their lives, 

 wishing they had never seen the place. 

 The fear seized them in the back, but rub- 

 bing them with oil of turpentine gave them 

 relief!" 



Sir Charles Ltell, in his " Geology," 

 speaking of Madagascar, says that, with two 

 or three small islands in its immediate vicin- 

 ity, it forms a zoological sub-province, in 

 which all the species except one, and nearly 

 all the genera, are peculiar. He singles out 

 for special remark the lemurs of Madagas- 

 car, comprising seven genera, only one of 

 which has any representatives on the nearest 

 main-land of Africa. Hitherto no fossil re- 

 mains of these Madagascar species have 

 been known to exist, but M. Delfortrie, of 

 the French Academy of Sciences, announces 

 that he has found, in the phosphorite of 

 the department of Lot, an almost complete 

 skull of an individual belonging to this le- 

 murine family. 



Or the 35,170,294 passengers carried 

 over the railroads of Pennsylvania last year, 

 only thirty-three were killed, less than one 

 in a million. But the English lines make a 

 far more favorable showing, the number 

 killed in the year 1871 being only twelve 

 or one in 31,000,000. 



