718 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



circumstances, and as may be expected, the 

 Bishnoies are a well-to-do community, but 

 are abhorred by the other people, especially 

 as by their domestic and frugal habits they 

 soon get rich, and are the owners of the 

 best lands in the country." 



Wild Birds In Cities.— About fifty-five 

 species of wild birds make themselves at 

 home in the city of Paris and find their 

 living there. All of the orders, except per- 

 haps the climbers, are represented among 

 them. One bird of prey, a pelerine falcon, 

 established himself on the towers of Notre 

 Dame a few years ago, whence he hunted 

 the pigeons of the quarter, and a fisher- 

 martin, leaving the marshes he was accus- 

 tomed to frequent, when the water became 

 too low for him, came to hunt insects and 

 little fishes in the midst of the city, near the 

 Pont des Arts. A number of woodcocks 

 and rails, a season or two ago, haunted the 

 ponds of la Glaciere, and a few pairs of 

 water-fowl made their nests in the same 

 place. But these wading birds will proba- 

 bly soon have to seek another abode, for 

 their domains are being reduced every day, 

 and there will shortly be no trace left of 

 the old marsh. A brace of quails are in- 

 stalled in the same region, whose presence 

 is revealed every June by the well-known 

 call of the male. The pigeons form, during 

 the pleasant season, numerous colonies in 

 the public gardens, where also establish 

 themselves numbers of woodpeckers, lin- 

 nets, red-tails, blackbirds, greenfinches, chaf- 

 finches, sparrows, and rooks; while swal- 

 lows, martins, and jackdaws build their nests 

 under the cornices of the houses or conceal 

 them in chimneys, in the holes of old walls, 

 and in church-towers. No species live on 

 terms of closer intimacy with the human in- 

 habitants than the sparrows, which every- 

 where seek the neighborhood of man. No 

 bird has been more calumniated ; but, ad- 

 mitting that they have mischievous traits, 

 it is certain that they are most active and 

 efficient destroyers of noxious insects. The 

 English ornithologist Macgillivray asserts 

 that without them the kitchen-gardens 

 around London would not be able to furnish 

 the market with cabbages ; and M. Ch^tel, 

 of Vire, regards them as the most useful of 

 insectivorous birds. They are noisy and 



pugnacious, and seem better suited with city 

 than with country life. They have multi- 

 plied wonderfully in all the European and 

 in the American cities. M. N6ree Qu6pat, 

 author of the " Ornithologie Parisienne," 

 believes that there are three times as many 

 sparrows in Paris as there are of human in- 

 habitants, and, in view of the innumerable 

 flocks of them to be seen in all parts of the 

 city, it is easy to credit the assertion. The 

 pigeons also are nearly as well domesticated 

 as the sparrows, but are less constant in 

 their attachment to their home, for they 

 leave the city in the fall, to winter in a 

 Bouthera climate. They are exposed to cap- 

 ture and destruction during their journey 

 by the people of Southern France, and their 

 numbers are diminishing; so that, unless 

 precautions are taken to save them from 

 this persecution, Paris will in time know 

 them no more. 



Spider-TIireads for Economical Uses. — 



We have already mentioned some of the 

 efforts that have been made to spin threads 

 and weave cloths of spiders' web.s. They 

 have so far fallen short of success, on ac- 

 count of the difficulty of getting enough of 

 the fiber, and of the lack of strength of 

 most spiders' threads. A few species of 

 spiders encourage the hope that the manu- 

 facture of spider-cloth may yet become 

 something more than a dream. Sir Samuel 

 Baker describes a spider in Ceylon, two 

 inches long, that spins a beautiful yellow 

 web two feet and a half in diameter, bo 

 strong that a walking-stick when thrown 

 into it is entangled and retained among the 

 meshes. Mr. F. W. Burbridge, in "The 

 Gardens of the Sun," describes a larger 

 spider which spins a web strained on lines 

 as stout as fine sewing-cotton. Dr. Walsh 

 tells from personal observation of a still 

 larger spider, the Aranea macuJata of Bra- 

 zil, whose web, ten or twelve feet in diame- 

 ter, very sensibly entangled his head and 

 forced him to leave his hat behind when he 

 came out from it. Lieutenant Hemdon, of 

 the United States Navy, confirms this ac- 

 count, and estimates the diameter of a web 

 he saw at ten yards. The furnishing of 

 cross-lines for telescope-glasses can hardly 

 be the only use to which these beautiful 

 threads are adapted. 



