NOTES. 



575 



greatest delight was to see the baby bathed. 

 The child becoming sick, the parrot was sent 

 to the kitchen. There, after a time, he set up 

 a terrible cry, "The baby, the dear baby!'' 

 All the family rushed down, to find the par- 

 rot, in the wildest excitement, watching the 

 roasting of a sucking-pig. A parrot, which 

 was a slow learner, was taught till it could 

 repeat verses, when, if it made a mistake, it 

 would say angrily, " You are no good " ; but, 

 if it went on without error, it praised itself. 

 There is considerable difference in the ca- 

 pability of parrots to learn, and in the way 

 they learn. One is taught with difficulty, 

 but remembers. Another picks up every- 

 thing that is going on, and remembers noth- 

 ing for more than a few days. Some few 

 learn easily and also remember well. There 

 are parrots which have a better ear for mu- 

 sic than for words, and some which will 

 whistle and smg, and not speak. Moreover, 

 the best acclimatized parrot is easily upset 

 by a change of food or attendance, but espe- 

 cially of surroundings. 



NOTES. 



A specimen of the vibikari, or sacred 

 snake of Japan, in Dr. Stradling's collection 

 at Watford, England, recently gave birth to 

 between sixty and seventy young ones. Some 

 fifty living and still-born snakelets were col- 

 lected, and it was believed that at least a 

 dozen more had been destroyed by other 

 snakes in the cage. At ten days old the 

 young ones had cast their skins, and were 

 beginning to eat earth-worms and small 

 slugs. These snakes well illustrate the cu- 

 rious provision of a temporary, long, chisel- 

 like front tooth with which baby-snakes are 

 enabled to cut their way through the soft, 

 membranous envelope of the egg. They 

 showed fight as soon as they were born, and 

 were always ready to snap at an intrusive 

 finger. This is the first time this species has 

 bred in Europe. 



Sir Emerson Tennent long ago called 

 attention to the power of the cocoanut-palm 

 to conduct lightning, and the subject is again 

 called up by a Ceylon paper. Five hundred 

 of these trees were struck on a single planta- 

 tion during a succession of thunder-storms 

 in April, 1869. But the trees suffer terri- 

 bly from the effects, for, however slightly 

 they may be touched, they are sure to die. 

 Even if only the edges of the leaves are 

 singed, or only a few of them are turned 

 brown, the tree will in the end wither grad- 

 ually and perish. 



Dr. J. Stuart Nairne, of the Glasgow 

 Samaritan Hospital for Women, has record- 

 ed several instances in his practice in which 

 the use of fish, boiled or fried, as food, by 

 patients, even when consideiably advanced 

 in convalescence, was followed by evil con- 

 sequences ; and he had begun to believe 

 that, under any circumstances of debility, 

 fish was a very dangerous diet, and for- 

 bade its use. Further observation taught 

 him that the fault was not in the fish itself, 

 but in the method of cooking it ; and that 

 when steamed, instead of being boiled or 

 fried, it was much more easily digestible and 

 perfectly harmless. 



Mr. J. Sturgeon explained to the Brit- 

 ish Association a scheme for the introduc- 

 tion of compressed air-power into Birming- 

 ham. He showed that although each 1,000 

 horse-power at the central station may only 

 produce 500 effective horse-power at the 

 user's engines, it will displace fully 1,000 

 horse -power of small boiler - plants, fur- 

 naces, chimneys, etc., and the same engines 

 can be used with compressed air as with 

 steam. The centralization principle per- 

 mits the use of engines and boilers of large 

 power, with all the modern improvements. 

 At the pressure proposed (forty-five pounds) 

 the air-driven engines will indicate from 

 thirty to sixty-five per cent of the power de- 

 veloped at the main engines, according to the 

 mode of using the compressed air. 



The Rumford Medal of the Royal Society 

 has been awarded to Professor Samuel P. 

 Langley for his researches on the spectrum 

 by means of the bolometer. 



Summing up the points of an address on 

 " What constitutes Malignancy in Cancer ? " 

 Dr. Herbert Snow, of the cancer Hospital, 

 London, expresses the conclusion that the 

 phenomena designated by that term " result 

 from conditions which irritate normal pro- 

 toplasm, cause it to proliferate abnormally, 

 and to assume a quasi-independent para- 

 sitic vitality. These conditions may be me- 

 chanical ; in a much larger proportion of 

 cases they are neurotic. That is the far- 

 thest point we have yet reached ; nor do I 

 see how our knowledge of cancer can make 

 much advance until we know far more than 

 at present about the ultimate properties of 

 protoplasm, and the manner in which this 

 is influenced by states of the nervous sys- 

 tem." 



It is reported that the state manage- 

 ment of railways has proved a practical fail- 

 ure in all those countries where private 

 lines have been allowed to compete with it. 

 Instead of the government regulating the 

 private railroads, as it was expected to do, 

 it is regulated by them, and has had to ad- 

 just its terms to meet those which they im- 

 posed. In Belgium, the Government rail- 



