320 



NATURE 



\_AtlgllSt 2, 1883 



serpent of any kind) lying on the bank a few yards down the 

 line." I went to the place indicated, and there was a very large 

 viper basking in the sun, but when I got near, it began to move 

 away, and to prevent its escape I gently pressed a stick across it 

 while I sent the man to fetch a glass jar to secure it in ; but 

 when it found its progress arretted, it began in a very spiteful 

 manner to dart its nee forward, striking at the stick and stones 

 and anything that was within its reach, but I could not see that 

 it opened its mouth to make a real bite ; but when it found with 

 all its wriggling and twisting it was unable to free itself, it 

 turnel its head round upon it-elf, and about four inches from 

 the head it opened its jaws and gave itself a bite, and when the 

 fangs were well into the skin, it gave an extra squeeze, as if it 

 intended to make sure that the operation should be thoroughly 

 and effectively performed. It then deliberately withdrew its 

 fangs, and in so doing it turned its head first one way and then 

 the other, so as to withdraw one fang at a time. 



Its head then went forward, and its body and tail became 

 straight, and there lay the viper apparently lifeless, but I noticed 

 a slight tremor in the skin and scales, which gradually passed 

 from the head to the end of the tail. I look it up with my hand 

 and placed it in the glass jar, and stood the jar in the window 

 where the rays of the sun were hot, and in twenty five minutes 

 the viper began to show signs of life, and in an hour it was as 

 lively as if nothing had happened. 



I should be glad to know whether it has come to the know- 

 ledge of any of the readers of Nature that any human being 

 or ; ivy animal has died from the bite of a viper. In my 

 boyhood I have known sheep being bitten in the under jaw 

 near the lip, and the animal's head has swollen very large, but 

 invariably the sheep were well again when seen early on the 

 following morning. 



Some twenty years ago I saw a man who had been bitten in 

 the hand by a viper, and his arm swelled and turned purple in 

 places, and he was sick and faint for some hours, but he told me 

 he was as well twenty-four hours after the bite as he was before. 



R. Langdon 



Silverton Station, Cullumpton, Devon, July 28 



A Cat and a Chicken 



The account I extract below was given in a loeal paper dated 

 May 30 last : — 



"Strange Attachment. — A curious instance of the above was 

 brought to our knowledge by Mr. Hibbs, of the ' White House,' 

 Swanage, A hen sitting on thirteen eggs hatched out twelve 

 chickens on the 15th inst., but during her sitting four stray eggs 

 had been laid in her nest, and as the eggs bad not been marked 

 these could not be removed. The hen with her little brood 

 were not taken from the nest till two days later, when one of the 

 stray eggs was found to be just bursting its shell. Mrs. Hibbs, 

 in trying to as-ist the little stranger by removing the shell, some- 

 what injured it, and thinking it would die, and not liking to kill 

 it her elf, she thought that her cat (which happened to have a 

 kitten a few days' old) would make short work of it. Strange 

 to say the cat commenced to remove all the shell from the 

 hatching chick, and then to shelter it with her kitten ; since 

 which she has carefully Io iked after it, and it is certainly a 

 pleasing and unusual sight to ^ee the little chick nestling between 

 the forepaws of its foster mother with the kitten in close 

 proximity. Mr. Hibbs tried to put the chicken with the re t of 

 the brood, but the cat was so uneasy until the chicken was 

 restored to her, that Mr. Hibbs has decided to let her have her 

 own way, and bring them up together." 



I kept the paper by me, intending, if I could verify the 

 incident, to send the report of it to you. But under pressure of 

 other writing it was not till a week ago that I addressed a letter 

 to Mr. Hibbs. Last night I received from Mr. James Andrews 

 of Swanage the following reply :— 



" Faircross, Wyke Regis, Weymouth, July 24, 1883 



" Dear Sir, — David Hibbs of Swanage has forwa.ded me your 

 letter of the 19th inst., asking me to reply to it. This he has 

 done, I presume, as I had put his paragraph to the paper a little 

 in'o 'shipshape' for him 



" I am a resident at Swanage, and the bank manager there, 

 and can vouch for the details of the ' Strange Attachment ' just 

 as recorded. I went round at Hibbs's request when the chicken 

 was four days old. The old cat was lying do«n — the kitten 

 asleep — and the little chick nestling with the cat, who would lift 

 up her foreleg whenever the chick came near, to allow the chick 



to nestle under its arm, when it would close its arm around it 

 in a most amusing and affectionate way, and seemed to be much 

 more anxious about it than her own kitten. They began feed- 

 ing the little chick at the first by sprinkling sop on the hair of the 

 cat, wdiich the chick would pick off. I do not know whether 

 Hibbs has replied to you as well, as he did not say, but I hope 

 the above will be sufficient. — James Andrews." 



It is to be noted that these aberrations from inherited habit — 

 to which we have given the convenient name of instinct — occur 

 almost invariably under the strong solvent of the maternal 

 aTopyh ; but that they should occur at all points strongly towards 

 the essential oneness and common origin of all life — however 

 widely it may have deviated later aljng its ancestral lines of 

 descent. Henry Cecil 



Bregner, Bournemouth, July 25 



Primaeval Man and Working-Men Students 



I received a letter with great pleasure a -fortnight ago from 

 four new correspondents, who said they were working-men of 

 Plaistow who had read my notes on Primaeval Man in Nature, 

 had studied the Pitt-Rivers collection, and wished to show me 

 their finds in Essex and have the North-East London position 

 personally explained to then). Sunday having been mentioned 

 as a convenient day, and this being approved by me, my corre- 

 spondents (Messrs. W. II. Smith, Amos Herring, W. Swain, and 

 Philip Thornhill) came here on Sunday morning, July 29. The 

 stones brought were of great interest, mostly belonging to the Essex 

 positions published by me. One example wis a superb, rather 

 large, wedge-shaped, pointed, slightly abraded, and ochreous 

 implement found at Leyton ; two were from Plaistow, a locality 

 almost unrepresented in collections; one from West Ham, and 

 other pieces from Wanstead. A somewhat small ovate specimen 

 of grext interest was found by one of my correspondents in the 

 gravel excava'ed for the New Albert Dock, the extension of the 

 Victoria Dock. The object of the greatest interest was a rude 

 scraper-l.ke tool made from a somewhat large piece of tabular 

 Bint, and found in gravel excavated between Loughton Railway 

 Station and the " Robin Hood" Tavern, 1111 ioubtedly artificial 

 and palaeolithic ; this ancient gravel is I think usually placed in 

 the Glacial series ; the find must be accepted as genuine. 1 may 

 say here that on the 23rd of this month I found another imple- 

 ment and six flakes in gravel brought from Ware. 



After my friends had looked over the collection here, listened 

 to a few hints, and received a gift each of an implement from 

 my own store in pleasant remembrance of the visit, we went to 

 see some of the small excavations still open near Stoke Newing- 

 ton Common, in one of which the line of the " Palaeolithic 

 Floor" was distinctly visible, covered with about two feet of 

 "trail and warp " and surmounted by humus. We then went 

 into the Lea Valley, the meaning of the wide and deep excava- 

 tion since palaeolithic limes being well understood by my visitors. 



38, Kyverdale Road, N. WorthiNGTON G. SMITH 



A Remarkable Form of Cloud 



The peculiar cloud formation observed by Mr. Hopkins and 

 communicated to Nature, vol. xxviii. p. 299, was aUo seen by 

 me on Sunday, July 22, at 10.35 P- m - What I saw accords 

 almost perfectly with the de>cription given by Mr. Hopkins ; 

 but there was one rather important exception. Starting from a 

 little above the horizon in the north-north-west I observed the 

 p isition of another arch of cloud, cle irly defined, strictly parallel 

 to the principal arch, and ending somewhat abruptly about 20 

 from the zenith. The main streak was separated from it by 

 lb ut three times its width, and the intermediate space was quite 

 clear. Both clouds appeared comparatively dense, and were 

 situated at a moderate elevation. I did not notice any change 

 in their appearance, nor did I see them break up. 



It seems not improbable tint currents of air from the north- 

 north-west, passing through an otherwise tranquil but vapour- 

 laden atmosphere of a much lower temperature than the sur- 

 rounding air, may have originated these streaky bands of cloud 

 by condensing the aqueous vapour suspended along their course 

 into definite form. Arthur Ebfels 



Clapham, July 31 



With reference to Mr. Hopkins's letter in Nature last 

 week (p. 299), I may say that I observed the bow-like band of 



