"r " 



48 



THE ILLINOIS FAEMEK. 



Feb. 



to be one of the greatest improvements in this line, 

 of the age. It quiets and soothes the workers, and 

 does not terrify them as does tobacco smoke. The 

 secret is known to Mr. Langstroth and myself, who 

 are to test it and give the public our views as to 

 its merits. J. P. K. 



The Doctor not residing in a good honey produc- 

 ing section, is not aware of how well bees are do- 

 ing in the hands of many in our more favored lo- 

 calities ; nor does it appear to me that he is pos- 

 sessed of all the facts in regard to honey for culi- 

 nary purposes, some facts concerning which I will 

 give in a future article. J. M. SrEBBiJfS. 



Appleton, Wis., Nov. 10, 1862. 



I ^ — ^Many of our readers will doubtless recollect a 

 person in the bee department at the Chicago Fair, 

 who attracted no inconsiderable attention by put- 

 ting live bees in his mouth, making them build 

 comb in his hat and various other unheard of facts. 

 This was Prof. Twining, mentioned in the above 

 connection. That he had some secret process of 

 charming the bees all seemed to admit, though if 

 we recollect aright, he only claimed the non use 

 of tobacco and whisky, and having a sweet breath 

 that pleased the bees. The swarm of bees that the 

 Prof, so cleverly managed was in Langstroth's old 

 hives with shallow chambers, but though having 

 an abundance of honey the swarm was lost during 

 the winter, much to the regret of a friend of ours 

 to whom it had been given at the close of the 

 Fair. 



We understand that Mr. Bolbridge who examin- 

 ed it, pron ounced the chamber too shallow. Last 

 winter we lost several sv-^arms in similar chambers, 

 and have no doubt that the same cause may be 

 ascribed to numerous losses of swarms within our 

 knowledge. For these reasons we have discarded 

 Langstroth's hive, but we are ready to hear any new 

 testimony in favor of improvement. Mi". L. has 

 done much to extend the rearing of bees in this 

 country, and is entitled to at least the thanks and 

 good wishes of every lover of pure honey. Ed. 



Voices of Animals. 



There is a chapter in the natural history of ani- 

 mals that has hardly been touched upon as yet, and 

 that will be especially interesting with reference to 

 families. The voices of animals have a family 

 character not to be mistaken. All the canidtc 

 bark and howl. The fox, the wolf, the dog have 

 the same kind of utterance; though on a somewhat 

 different pitch. All the bears growl, from thg 

 white bear of the Arctic snows to the small black 

 bear of the Andes. All the cats miau, from our 

 quiet fireside companions to the lions and tigers, 



and panthers of the forest and jungle. This last 

 may seem a strange assertion ; but to any one who 

 has listened critically to their sounds and analyzed 

 their voices, the roar of the lion is but a gigantic 

 miau, bearing about the same proportion to that of 

 a cat as its stately and majestic form does to the 

 smaller, softer, more peaceful aspect of the cat. 

 Yet, notwithstanding the difference in their size, 

 who can look at the lion, whether in his more sleepy 

 mood, as he lies curled up in the corner of his 

 cage, or in his fiercer moments of hunger or of 

 rage, without being reminded of a cat ? And this 

 is not merely the resemblance of one carniverous 

 animal to another ; for no one was ever reminded 

 of a dog or a wolf by a lion. Again, all the horses 

 and donkeys neigh ; for the bray of the donkey is 

 only a harsher neigh, pitched on a different key, it 

 is true, but a sound of the same character, as the 

 d onkey himself is but a clumsy and dwarfish horse. 

 All the cows low, from the buffalo roaming the 

 prairie, the musk-ox of the Arctic ice-fields, or the 

 jack of Asia, to the cattle feeding in our pasture. 

 Among the birds this similarity of voice in families 

 is still more marked. We need only recall the 

 harsh and noisy parrots, so similar in their peculiar 

 utterance. Or take as an example^ the web-footed 

 family. Do not all the geese and the innumerable 

 hosts of ducks quack ? Does not every member 

 of the crow family caw, whether it be the jackdaw, 

 the jay, the magpie, the rook, in some green rook- 

 ery of the Old World, or the crow of the woods 

 with its long and melancholy caw, that seems to 

 make the silence still deeper ? Compare all the 

 sweet warblers of the songster family — the night- 

 ingales, the thrushes, the mocking-birds, the robins 

 — they differ in greater or less perfection of their 

 note, but the same kind of voice runs through the 

 whole group. 



< g >- 



Grain Trade of Chicago, for 1862. 



On this, the last day of the year, 1862, we pre- 

 sent the readers of the "Tribune" a brief review of 

 the Grain Trade of Chicago since tbo first of Jan- 

 uary last. 



From the statement which follows, with the sta- 

 tistical tables, kc, it will be seen that notwith- 

 standing the heavy drain on the West for soldiers 

 to suppress the rebellion, the wheels of commerce 

 moved steadily onward, at least so far as Chicago 

 is concerned. Since the first day of January 

 there have been received of flour and grain of all 

 kinds, equal to 58,519,194 bushels — an increase 

 over that of 1861 of over four and a half millions 

 of bushels. 



This increase in the grain trade of our city, too, 



