504 



• KNOWLEDGE 



[Dec. 19, 1884. 



(SERPETJSj 



ni^^ 410™ . 2;oni 5V 



^ipm. 2!;(FA ^-V7^ 



Day Sign of the Month. 



ought to furnish suggestions and data more valuable than 

 all the other fruits of Polar research combined. Self- 

 registering meteorological apparatus, and possible gauges of 

 the miles travelled, may in the future reveal to the inves- 

 tigators what the sacrifice of thousands of lives has other- 



o 



■wise failed to discover. 



be mistaken for immature or bastard oats, although a 

 moment's Inspection would reveal its true character. Tb* 

 seed, particularly, would serve to emphasise its unlikeness 



ZODIACAL MAPS. 



By RicHAKD A. Peoctor, 



TT 7 E give this week both the day sign and the night sign 

 VV for the month, one showing the zodiacal sign now 

 high in the heavens at midnight, the other showing the 

 region of the zodiac athwart which the sun pursues his 

 course at this part of the year. 



A SHEEP-DESTROYER. 



By John R. Coryell. 



GROWING on our Western plains is a pretty -looking 

 kind of grass, resembling oats, and which is called, 

 popularly, weather grass or needle grass — botanically, Stipa 

 spartea. What may be its special sphere of usefulness to 

 man or in the economy of nature, granting that it has 

 such a sphere, is hardly worth considering in the light of 

 its evil works. 



Looked at casually, while in its growing state, it might 



to its useful cousin, and it is this seed which, as a seemingly 

 insignificant but really potent agent of destruction, claims 

 our attention. 



The seed in general conformation, but cot otherwise, is 

 like the oat. Its base is tipped with a tiny point as sharp 



