THE OXLV KNOWN ALIUNO FROG 



313 



neath ; the eyes are brilliant red, with 

 a narrow gold rim arotind the pupil. 

 Our specimen is a female about two 

 and three quarter inches in length of 

 head and body, and therefore not quite 

 adult. At first it was very timid, dart- 

 ing arotmd its cage with nervous agil- 

 ity, bruising its head against the screen 



ALBINO FROt;. 



Photographed with common color phase to show the 



marked difference. 



Cut by courtesy of the '"Zoological Society. 



top and glass sides whenever anyone 

 came near it. After nearly three 

 months of captivity, however, it has 

 lost its nervous fear, and will come 

 from its hiding place tnider the moss 

 provided for it and hunt the roaches, 

 mealworms and earthworms which 

 form its food. It will also sit for hours 

 on a large flat stone in the center of its 

 cage, apparently quite content \vith its 

 surroundings. 



"Of course this frog is enjoying spec- 

 ial care, and we look forward to keep- 

 ing it for a reasonably long time." 



Will our members and other friends 

 keep on the watch for albino frogs? 

 We would be glad this coming spring 

 to have a report of the total number 

 and the different varieties seen in one 

 place? 



The Royal Scottish Arboricultural 

 Society began some thirty-tour years 

 ago to plant with Douglas fir certain 

 barren northern slopes between sea- 

 level and twelve hundred feet eleva- 

 tion. Some of the earlier plantations 

 have now been cut, and show a net 

 profit of nearly seventy pounds to the 

 acre, on land that had been considered 

 virtually worthless. 



An Astonishing Form of Snake. 



BY CL.\RHXCE A. POPE^ ENGLISH, INDIANA. 



Jiack through the ages of time and the 

 growth of man legends and myths have 

 been sung and told by the bards, poets 

 and prose writers, almost all of which 

 have embodied in them, it seems, some de- 

 gree of superstition. All antiquity seems 

 to have been darkened by overshadowing 

 deeds of horror ; the people cowered in 

 fear ])y the threatening approach of fero- 

 cious animals and venomous dragons, 

 and, in fact, if the legends be true, man's 

 existence depended upon his continuous 

 struggle ami final defeat of the serpent 

 family. It is highly probable that man's 

 superstition and fear for the hydra, dra- 

 gon, and great serpents that infested the 

 interminable forests and swamps was 

 well founded upon some reality : upon 

 some actual experience in life. We can 

 hardly believe that the myths, as we know 

 them, would have pictured man's strug- 

 gle with these multiheaded dragons and 

 monsters unless at some time there was 

 a real basic foundation of similar facts 

 that stimulated the mind to portray such 

 vived pictures of life, horror and death. 



This idea was more vividly impressed 

 upon his mind when the following truth 

 came imder the writer's observation : 



A group of men lounging around the 

 little country store of Pilot Knob, Indiana 

 were talking in a matter-of-fact way 

 about a two-headed snake that had recent- 

 ly been killed and invited the writer to 

 accompany them to view the newly dis- 

 covered freak. Back of an old black- 

 smith shop, where the weeds had been 

 permitted to grow to an unusual height, 

 was the object sotight. The snake was 

 three feet eight inches long, was of a 

 black and white splotched eft'ect, resem- 

 bling a cow-snake in many respects. The 

 belly was of two colors — one end white, 

 the other a mottled blue. There was a 

 full sized, perfectly developed head on 

 either end of the body. However the two 

 heads were not of the same type — one was 

 that of a non-poisonous snake but the 

 other lx)re every resemblance of the rat- 

 tlesnake family — shape, fangs, jaws and 

 eyes. In fact nature had so well per- 

 formed her duty in the creation of this 

 freak that those who discovered it coiled 

 thought there were two snakes, and not 

 until after it was killed did they learn the 

 real truth. This snake was killed Septem- 

 ber 15, 1914. and was the second of its 

 kind to be killed near this vicinitv. 



