POPULAR MISCELLANY. 



429 



ous effect upon the brute. Its skin, I be- 

 lieve, is still to be seen at the Dutch East 

 Indian Museum at Amsterdam. If there is 

 one animal more than another detested by 

 the human race, it is the crocodile, and, if 

 possible, the hunter or sportsman hates it 

 more than all others combined, for it is cer- 

 tain to carry off his dogs sooner or later." 

 The call of the crocodile is described as be- 

 ing like the snappish bark of an aggrieved 

 dog. 



Two Snake - Stories analyzed. — Two 



American snake-stories — one about a singing 

 snake said to be in the Smithsonian Institu- 

 tion, and the other about a rattlesnake that 

 was said to have poisoned itself — having been 

 referred to Dr. Arthur Stradling for a verdict 

 on their credibility, he has pronounced them 

 both intrinsically false. No snake on earth, 

 he says, has any vocal apparatus, properly 

 so called, whatever, or is capable of produc- 

 ing any respiratory sound beyond a hiss or a 

 wheeze. But they may in the last stage of 

 canker give vent to a noise almost amount- 

 ing to a squeal, caused by forcible expiration ; 

 and, if they happen to have swallowed a frog 

 alive, he may croak audibly in the snake's 

 stomach. To what extent a poisonous ser- 

 pent's bite is noxious to itself is doubtful. 

 " Probably it inflicts mechanical injury only 

 upon its own body, or upon those of its im- 

 mediate congeners. ... I have seen cobras 

 bite and shake each other like dogs over dis- 

 puted rats, and I recollect a jaboia being 

 heavily mauled by a puff-adder under like 

 circumstances, with a little swelling and in- 

 flammation only arising in either case." Dr. 

 Stradling has a rattlesnake that bit itself 

 severely, with no more result than a little 

 tumefaction of the wound; and it is still 

 living and well. 



Fading Photographs.— Common photo- 

 graphs, in which the dark parts consist of 

 finely divided silver on a film of albumen, 

 rarely remain unchanged in appearance for 

 twenty years. The white parts sooner or 

 later take on a sickly yellow tinge, and, when 

 this change has begun, the picture is doomed, 

 unless immediate steps are taken to preserve 

 it. Treatment by skillful hands with a 

 weak solution of mercuric chloride (corrosive 

 sublimate) may arrest decay, but will not 



restore the clearness and freshness of the 

 print. A better plan is to have the picture 

 copied by some platinum-printing or carbon- 

 printing photographer who does a large 

 enough business to employ a skillful re- 

 toucher. The process of getting a good 

 permanent photograph from a bad fading 

 one is complicated, and requires skill. 

 Photographs in which the dark parts are 

 formed of platinum-black are the most du- 

 rable sort known. The best photographers 

 will furnish permanent pictures if their 

 sitters demand them, but such pictures are 

 in plain black and white — without the choco- 

 late tinge of the common style — unless the 

 carbon process with a pigment of the requisite 

 color is employed. The greatest enemies to 

 the permanence of common silver-prints are 

 traces of chemicals not fully washed out of 

 the print, dampness, and the action of sulphur 

 or its compounds. The last of these agencies 

 is the most diflicult to guard against. The 

 albumen with which the photograph-paper is 

 coated contains sulphur, and a familiar in- 

 stance of its action is the blackening of silver 

 egg-spoons. The air also, especially in cities, 

 contains sulphurous gases derived from 

 sewers, and from the burning of coal and 

 gas. 



Warmth for the Injured.— A correspond, 

 ent of " The Lancet " urges the addition of 

 some source of artificial heat to the equip- 

 ment of ambulances in cold weather. " We 

 all know," he says, "how depressed the 

 system is after accidents ; how difficult it is to 

 restore warmth ; and if to this we add ex- 

 posure to a low temperature on the ground 

 in frosty or wet weather, any amount of 

 blankets can not add warmth, only retain 

 what little there remains in the body. One 

 need only picture one's meeting with an ac- 

 cident three or four miles from home, late 

 in the evening, without additional clothing, 

 lying for one or two hours on the damp 

 ground, to realize how some means of con- 

 veying heat to the feet and hands would be 

 welcomed." The writer then describes the 

 means which he has used, consisting of a 

 tin-lined copper bottle, holding a gallon and 

 a hall, and closed with a screw-plug. It is 

 of concavo-convex shape, for feet, chest, etc. 

 If filled with boihng water and rolled up in 

 a blanket, it will remain quite hot for three 



