V 



RANDOM NOTES ON NATURAL HISTORY. 



9 



About Insects. 



Profkssou Elliot, of New York City, is 

 concUicting some interesting experiments to 

 test the sensibility or insensibility of insects 

 to pain. A dragon-fly was fastened to a 

 board and its abdomen severed from the 

 rest of its body. The latter was then fed 

 to the insect by piecemeal, which it ate 

 with evident relish, the parts eaten of course 

 dropping out of the severed end. Having 

 eaten its own abdomen, it was served with 

 six spiders and sixty flies, swallowing them 

 all and losing them immediately, evidently 

 suflfering no ^^\\\.— -Scientific Times. 



wintering in the North in considerable num- 

 bers also, for we received about seventy on 

 Jan. 15, killed near the Rangeley Lakes in 

 Maine. 



Stuffed Spiders. 



ALBINISM. 



We have frequent opportunities to ob- 

 serve albinistic tendencies in animals as well 

 as birds, and think that with the gray squir- 

 rel, Sciunis carolinensis, it is not uncom- 

 mon. Two specimens have come to our 

 notice within the past three months, both 

 taken within ten miles of Providence. 

 Another has been reported from the vicinity 

 of Greenfield, Mass.. and yet another near 

 Brooklyn, Conn., while each past year we 

 have had, or have heard of, one or two 

 specimens. 



Nov. 13, 1883, we received a rauskrat, 

 Fiber zibethicus, mottled all over, above 

 and below, with silvery-white in large 

 patches, the tail half brown, half white. 

 Three of the legs and paws white (the 

 other was lost in the trap), all the brown 

 color on the breast and belly very light, and 

 the eyes hazel. This specimen was taken in 

 Cranston two days before we received it, 

 and is now in the Museum of Brown Uni- 

 versity. Another, still more nearly white, 

 is reported as taken at the same time, but 

 being in some way damaged, it was thrown 

 away as useless. 



./ A King Eider, Somateria spectabilis, was 

 shot at Nayatt Point, Bristol Co., R. I ' 

 about Jan. 1, 1884, by Mr. Frank Tobey. 

 It was an adult male. This is not the first 

 record for Rhode Island, Ui: F. B. Webster 

 having a female, which was taken at same 

 place Nov. 27, 1879./ 



/ Purple Finches, Garpodacus purpureus, 

 / are common this winter. They must be ' 



When it comes to a real live, energetic, 

 ugly, vicious, poisonous spider, savs* the 

 Santa Barbara Independent, Southern Califor- 

 nia can enter prize animals at any fair. The 

 most precious trophies the tourists bear away 

 from this coast are, in all probability, the 

 neat cards decorated with these monsters of 

 the insect world. Every one is familiar with 

 the trap door and nest of this cunning but 

 ugly creation, and of which strange little 

 habitations every adope ranch is full. So 

 densely populated with these beautifully 

 lined tunnels are some of the sunnv, qnie'^t 

 valleys among the foot hills, that close in- 

 spection willreveal theiralmost invisible trap 

 doors hardly a foot apart. Yet, in spite of 

 this, hardly a living animal will be seen. 

 There is a legitimate demand for prepared 

 specimens, both at wholesale and retail. 

 When first brought in they are deprived of 

 what life is left in their bodies by poisonous 

 fumes or other application of poison. After 

 the taxidermist has made sure they are quite 

 dead— a wise precaution— he cuts them open 

 on the under side and, removing the loose 

 matter therefrom, carefully stuffs them with 

 cotton. This stuffing process is quite a deli- 

 cate operation, and requires no little knack 

 to perform neatly and successfully, without 

 injuring the animal, and bringing'it back to 

 its normal shape and size. A humming-bird 

 would seem to be about as small an object as 

 could easily be put through this painstaking 

 operation, let alone an insect even of the size 

 of a tarantula. This having been completed, 

 the spider is placed upon a board and prop- 

 erly held in position by pins, one through 

 the body and one in each foot, and set in 

 the sun to dry. 



The sale of them in Santa Barbara is car- 

 ried on both at wholesale and retail, several 

 parties carrying on the business, the sup- 

 ply seeming never to crowd the demand. 

 In spite of their great numbers, few in- 

 stances occur where people have been bitten 

 by them, the tarantulas generally being more 

 anxious than the other party to get'out of 

 the way.— Scientific American. 



