252 



Popular Science Monthly 



thousand dollars to carry out her 

 father's wishes. The model is com- 

 plete in every detail, even to small 

 whale boats which hang from the. 

 davits. It measures fifty-nine feet 

 from the figurehead to the stern, 

 and it is eighty-nine feet from flying 

 jibboom to spanker boom. The 

 cost of the model alone was twenty- 

 five thousand dollars. 



© Brown and Dawson 



A life-size model of the whaling ship, Lagoda, which 

 was built in the room in which it is exhibited 



The Largest Model of a Ship Ever 

 Constructed Under a Roof 



IN the days when the American merchant 

 marine was the pride of the entire 

 shipping world, New Bedford, Massa- 

 chusetts, was the port of many a prize- 

 winning cutter. It was also the 

 headquarters for the whalin 

 industry. One of the early 

 sea captains who made a 

 fortune out of whale 

 oil was Jonathan 

 Bourne, whose fa- 

 vorite ship was the 

 Lagoda. 



When Jonathan 

 Bourne died he or- 

 dered a model of the 

 Lagoda — the largest 

 model of its kind in 

 the world — placed in 

 a museum known as 

 the Jonathan Bourne 

 Whaling Museum. 

 His daughter, Emily 

 Howland Bourne, 

 contributed fifty 



The scarab rolling a ball of manure many 

 times its own size to a suitable hiding place 



The Curious Ways of Egypt's 

 Holy Beetle 



THE holy beetle of the Nile is 

 found carved in stone every- 

 where in Egypt — a relic of a time 

 when crocodiles, bugs, and beetles 

 were objects of worship. As the 

 scarab is a dung beetle it is naturally 

 found in the vicinity of herds and 

 particularly in pastures where no- 

 madic herdsmen watch their flocks. 

 The scarab is not satisfied with 

 merely eating manure on the spot, 

 as are most dung beetles. It 

 fashions perfectly rounded balls out 

 of manure and rolls them often con- 

 siderable distances and buries them 

 in the sand. 

 These dung balls serve the scarab and its 

 brood as food. It makes several balls for 

 itself, and others similar in appearance for 

 the brood. All are buried in the sand. 

 When making a ball for the young the 

 beetle is exceedingly careful in the selection 

 of food. It rejects all un- 

 digested vegetable particles. 

 The ball is fashioned into 

 pear-shape after having 

 been placed in the ex- 

 cavation made to re- 

 ceive it. A single 

 egg is laid in a small 

 receptacle in the 

 elongated part of the 

 pear. The larva, slip- 

 ping from the egg, 

 eats out the interior 

 of the greater part of 

 the ball, leaving a 

 hollowed-out portion 

 inside of the hard 

 outer crust. Within 

 this shell the chrysalis 

 stage is then passed. 

 — Dr. E. Bade. 



