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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



a peculiarly marked form, and is known 

 there as the " Barisal guns." M. Van 

 den Broeck calls it " mistpoeffers," or 

 air-puffs. The most definite descrip- 

 tion of it is given in Nature by Mr. 

 Henry S. Schurr, as he has heard it 

 in India, where it has been observed 

 over a wide range, but most clearly and 

 frequently in the Baekergunge district, 

 of which Barisal is the headquarters. 

 The Barisal guns are heard most fre- 

 quently from February to October, not 

 during fine weather but just before, dur- 

 ing, or immediately after heavy rain. 

 They always sound in triplets — that is, 

 three reports occur, one after another, 

 at regular intervals — and though several 

 guns may be heard, the number is always 

 three or a multiple of three. Sometimes 

 only one series of triplets of sounds is 

 remarked in a day; at other times the 

 author has counted as many as forty- 

 five of them, one after another, without 

 a pause. The report is exactly like the 

 firing of big guns heard at a distance, 

 except that it is always double, or has 

 an echo. A number of conjectural solu- 

 tions of the phenomenon have been put 

 forth, but none of them accounts for it 

 as a whole in any approaching a satis- 

 factory manner. 



Photographing Live Fishes. — A 

 number of methods are mentioned by 

 Dr. K. W. Schufeldt, in a paper on the 

 subject, by which fishes may be photo- 

 graphed in their natural element, with 

 natural surroundings. This can be done, 

 even under the surface of the water, by 

 the use of certain subaquatic appara- 

 tus. By the employment of instanta- 

 neous photography some fishes have been 

 taken in the air, as of salmon in the act 

 of leaping, or of flying fish in flight. 

 Such pictures, however, illustrate spe- 

 cial habits rather than the ordinary life 

 of the subjects. Well-arranged aqua- 

 riums afford opportunities for photo- 

 graphing fishes in almost every condi- 

 tion and position, and a command of 

 light and situation can be had in them 

 which is of great advantage to the oper- 

 ator. The specimens of fish photographs 

 published by the author with his paper 

 are in every way satisfactory. The spots 

 on the sun fish, for example, are almost 

 as clear and distinct as if we had the 

 fish lying before us in the broad light. 

 The photograph of the pike has af- 



forded opportunity to correct some in- 

 accuracies in the drawing of it as given 

 in previous works of high authority. 



Marine Life at Cold Spring Har- 

 bor, Long Island. — Mr. Francis N. 

 Beach, in presenting to the Boston So- 

 ciety of Natural History a list of the 

 Marine Mollusca of Cold Spring Harbor, 

 Long Island, speaks of the locality as 

 representing "a fairly distinct facies of 

 molluscan life — the fauna of the oyster 

 beds, broadly speaking. From this 

 point of view, its homogeneity and the 

 absence of stragglers lend it value. Prob- 

 ably almost every species enumerated 

 lives on the spot where found or in the 

 immediate vicinity. This characteristic 

 makes the spot a good sample of ac- 

 tual conditions of life in that interest- 

 ing transitional region where the ' Vir- 

 ginian ' and ' Acadian ' (or ' Boreal ') 

 faunas overlap. From this point of 

 view it is, so far from being homogene- 

 ous, strikingly heterogeneous." Of the 

 two faunas, the southern one contrib- 

 utes a quota rather more than twice that 

 of the more northern one, and the in- 

 crease in the preponderance of southern 

 forms can be detected in a range of 

 forty miles. The author concludes from 

 his examination that, notwithstanding 

 the well-marked character of Cold 

 Spring Harbor as " muddy," its mollus- 

 can fauna is determined not at all by 

 that character, but predominantly by 

 the depth of water and by the factors 

 included in the " inclosedness " of the 

 place — that is, he supposes, by the tem- 

 perature, the specific gravity, the per- 

 centage of organic matter, etc. " It looks 

 as though the various species would 

 manage somehow to be represented on 

 almost any stretch of shore or bottom, 

 provided only the water conditions be 

 right." 



Parm Homes for Neglected City 

 Children. — The system of providing 

 homes upon farms is represented in the 

 last annual report of the New York 

 Juvenile Asylum as being on the wane. 

 While from 1S80 to 1890 twenty-four 

 per cent of the children committed to 

 the asylum were placed in Western 

 homes, the percentage from 1890 to 1897 

 was only fifteen. Among the reasons 

 assigned for this diminution are the in- 

 crease of undesirable material, chiefly of 



