MISCELLANY. 



377 



Goodc. Washington: Government Print- 

 ing-Office. Pp. 82. 



Tracts on Labor and Money Questions. 

 Nos. III. and VI. By William Brown. 



MISCELLANY. 



Destruction of the Buffalo. The aver- 

 age annual destruction of buffaloes during 

 the last thirty or forty years is estimated 

 by a, writer in the Penn Monthly at be- 

 tween three and four millions. During the 

 season of 1872 "73 no less than two thou- 

 sand hunters, it is said, were engaged in 

 hunting the buffalo along the line of the At- 

 chison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railroad alone. 

 By these men at least 250,000 buffaloes 

 were slain, simply for their hides, the car- 

 casses being left untouched on the plains. 

 At this rate, the bison will have utterly dis- 

 appeared before many years, unless Gov- 

 ernment interferes to prevent this wasteful 

 slaughter. As yet, neither the central Gov- 

 ernment nor any of the States have taken 

 any effectual measures to prevent the exter- 

 mination of the noble animal. The author 

 of the article in the Penn Monthly sug- 

 gests that the traffic in hides might easily 

 be checked and controlled by law. The 

 killing of buffaloes should be restricted, he 

 says, to certain seasons of the year, and the 

 destruction of the females and young wholly 

 prohibited. Further, he would have it made 

 a grave offense to kill a buffalo at any time 

 wantonly, or without properly utilizing it. 

 Then, certain portions of the public lands 

 now within the range of the buffalo might 

 be made a preserve, wherein no buffaloes 

 should on any condition be killed. 



Distribution of the Rocky Mountain Lo- 

 cust. Prof. Riley fixes the southern limit of 

 the Rocky Mountain locust's ravages at the 

 44th parallel of latitude and the eastern lim- 

 it at the 103d meridian. The conditions 

 preventing the permanent settlement of this 

 insect in regions outside of the above limits 

 are considered by Prof. Riley in* his eighth 

 annual report on the insects of Missouri. 

 The native home of this locust he takes to 

 be the higher treeless and uninhabitable 

 planes of the Rocky Mountains a sub-al- 

 pine habitat with dry and attenuated atmos- 



phere. Now, a migration of insects accus- 

 tomed to such conditions into a more dense 

 and humid atmosphere must prove fatal to 

 them. But another barrier to their perma- 

 nent multiplication in the more fertile coun- 

 try to the southeast is found in the greater 

 duration there of the summer season. As 

 with annual plants, so with insects (like this 

 locust) which produce but one generation 

 annually and whose active existence is 

 bounded by the spring and autumn frosts, 

 the duration of active life is proportioned to 

 the length of the growing season. " Hatch- 

 ing late and developing quickly in its native 

 haunts, our Rocky Mountain locust, when 

 born within our borders (and the same will 

 apply in degree to all the country where it 

 is not autochthonous),, is in the condition of 

 an annual northern plant sown in more 

 southern climes; and just as this attains pre- 

 cocious maturity and deteriorates for want 

 of autumn's ripening influences, so our lo- 

 cust must deteriorate under such circum- 

 stances. If those which acquired wings in 

 Missouri early last June had staid with us 

 long enough to lay eggs, even supposing 

 them capable of doing so, those eggs would 

 have inevitably hatched prematurely, and 

 the progeny must in consequence have per- 

 ished." 



Fight between a Monse and a Scorpion. 



Frank Buckland, having witnessed the 

 rare spectacle of a combat between a mouse 

 and a scorpion, gives in Land and Water the 

 following description of the fight : " The 

 mouse having been dropped into the jar con- 

 taining the scorpion, the battle at once com- 

 menced by the scorpion assuming the offen- 

 sive. He made a lunge with his sting and 

 struck the mouse. This woke up the mouse, 

 who began to jump up and down like jack in 

 the box. When he became quiet, the scor- 

 pion again attacked the enemy, with his 

 claws extended like the pictures of the scor- 

 pion in ' The Signs of the Zodiac' He made 

 another shot at the mouse, but missed him. 

 I then called ' Time ! ' to give both com- 

 batants a rest. When the mouse had got his 

 wind, I stirred up the scorpion once more, 

 and, as ' the fancy ' say, ' he came up smil- 

 ing.' The mouse during the interval had 

 evidently made up his mind that he would 

 have to fight, and not strike his colors to a 



