August 9, 1883] 



NA TURE 



343 



12 feet long and 3^ feet broad, with the wheels near the middle, 

 each cart being drawn by a pair of bullocks. The tnahau! 

 (driver) of the elephant I was riding having halted the animal 

 close up to the heap of boulders, there was just room left between 

 the elephant and the chain for the carts to pass. These carts 

 were the ordinary vehicles of the country, and under ordinary 

 circumstances an elephant would no more think of "shying " at 

 them than a London dray horse would think of shying at a cab. 

 "Set as the carts went by one by one my elephant became more 

 and more uneasy, and finally, in spite of the efforts of the 

 mahaut to restrain her, mounted on the heap of boulders, at 

 the risk (which, considering how cautious elephants are in 

 treading on suspicious ground, I believe she must have seen quite 

 as clearly as the ma/taut or I) of rolling down the slope below 

 the road, if the rounded boulders shifted and gave way beneath 

 her weight. It was some time before I perceived the cause of 

 her fear. Elephants, even in India, are uncommon, and bullocks, 

 as well as other domestic animals, generally feel considerable 

 dread of them from their unusual appearance as well as their 

 size. The bullocks in question were greatly frightened at having 

 to pass so close to the bulky brute, and several of them in passing 

 tried to get away from her by jumping the drain. It required all 

 the efforts of the drivers to prevent their doing it. The elephant 

 evidently saw that the bullocks were frightened and that they 

 were trying to jump the drain, and she further calculated that if 

 they did so the long tail of the cart would swing sharply round 

 in the opposite direction and strike her violently across the fore 

 legs. Of the two risks she preferred that of mounting on the 

 heap of boulders. F. R. Mallet 



Calcutta, July 



As Nature frequently contains notices of intelligence in 

 animals, I have ventured to send you the inclosed note from the 

 Reading local paper, as containing a remarkable fact regarding 

 intelligence in a blind horse. The writer, Mr. Gostage, is quite 

 trustworthy, and I have taken pains to verify the truth of his 

 statements. Joseph Stevens 



128, Oxford Road, Reading, August 6 



Note published in the Reading Observer of August 4, 



1883 



Sagacity of the Horse 



Sir, — A circumstance so fully illustrative of the sagacity of 

 the horse was witnessed in the neighbourhood of Mortimer last 

 Saturday, and reported to me through the owner, that I think 

 it worth publicity. I can vouch for its truthfulness, and if any 

 doubt arises I can introduce such doubter to the owner. The 

 hor e under notice, an old blind one, belonging to a small trades- 

 man and farmer, was turned out to graze on the common near 

 the owner's house. For some cause it wound its way through 

 lanes to the blacksmith's, where he had often been before. The 

 entrance to the forge is difficult of access on account of the ditches 

 on either side, but the animal reached it safely, took its stand by 

 the forge, and then neighed. The blacksmith, beirg at work in 

 his garden, and hearing a horse neigh, looked for it, and not 

 seeing it, returned to his gardening operations. In a short time 

 he heard it again, but could not see a horse anywhere, until he 

 went into his shop, when he found it standing very quietly by 

 the forge as if waiting to be shod. Thinking some one must 

 have brought it there, the blacksmith looked at its feet, and 

 found one with the shoe pressing into the frog, causing great 

 pain. He then put on another shoe, and sent the hone back to 

 its owner. 



This instance of sagacity is so clear and telling that I thought 

 it desirable to ask you, Mr. Editor, to publish it. 



Yours truly, 



S. Gostage 



King's Street, Reading, August, 1883 



Accounts are not rare of female cats having adopted the 

 young of other creatures when deprived of their own, or while 

 nur.-ing their own young, but I have never met with a case like 

 the following : — 



My torn cat, Smut, whose eighteenth birthday was lately cele- 

 brated, has always been kind to kittens ; and a long friendship 

 with a tame rabbit was only terminated by the death of the 

 rabbit in consequence of eating too much plum pudding one 

 Christmas. But his benevolence to feathered creatures was first 

 shown in 1881, when, having a solitary chick hatched out of a 



clutch, I bethought me of making him useful as nurse, and with 

 some fear put the chick into his basket. The experiment answered 

 admirably, except that Smut sometimes licked the feathers the 

 wrong way ; and when about a fortnight afterwards the chicken 

 was accidentally killed, it was curious to see its foster-father's 

 search for it during the following three or four days. 



Since then Smut has taken charge of as many as fifteen young 

 chickens at a time, but he has never evinced the same affection 

 for them as for his first feathered foster-child. 



J. de B. F. P. 



The Orphange, Wandsworth Road, August 7 



Different Sources of Illumination 



In your issue of July 19 you give in the "Notes" \\>. 2S1J 

 some interesting data as to the products of combustion and heat 

 produced by different sources of illuuiination, each being of 100 

 candle-power and giving off this light for one hour. This is 

 valuable information, and I am sure that others besides myself 

 would be glad if you could give a reference to the authority. I 

 would also suggest that it would te interesting to have a com- 

 parative authoritative statement as to the carbonic acid and heat 

 produced in the same time by an average human being. 1 was 

 told the other day by a mining engineer that he finds that one 

 oil-lamp contaminates the air to the same extent as one miner 

 when at work. It is often stated that one gas-burner in a theatre 

 is as deleterious as six members of the audience. If the true 

 state of the case were published in your columns, it would be 

 interesting to many. George Forbes 



34, Great George Street, Westminster, July 20 



[The information is based on an article in l.a Lumiire Electrique 

 for June 16. — Ed.]. 



A Remarkable Form of Cloud 



An account, which will I believe be found satisfactory, of the 

 formation of the type of cloud described io Nature (vol. xxviii. 

 pp. 299, 320), will be found in a paper read by me before the' 

 Meteorological Society on June 20 last, and which will be pub- 

 lished in the next Quarterly Journal of the Society. The paper 

 is on "The Structure of Cirro-filum, or Ice-cloud disposed in 

 Threads." A very valuable contribution to our knowledge on this 

 subject will also be found in air article by Dr. Linn (" Ueber die 

 Entstehung der Wolkenstreifen," Zeitschrift fur Mctcorologie, 

 xviii. 52), to which I would refer those of your readers who are 

 interested in the topic. 



The cloud is very common, and regular reports of the direction 

 both of movement and of "filature," elements of very consider- 

 able value in the prognosis of weather, have been, for some years 

 past, sent to the Meteorological Office by a limited number of 

 observers. \V. Clement Ley 



Disease of Potatoes 



When I read the note from A T aturen in Nature, vol. xxviii; 

 p. 281, it appeared to me that Herr Anda was describing the 

 same effects in the potato stalk as had been described by 

 Berkeley in 1846. In his description of the usual potato disease 

 Berkeley says: — "The stern now rapidly putrefies, the cuticle 

 and its subjacent tissue become pulpy, and separate when touched 

 from the woody parts beneath. The whole soon dries up, and 

 in many instances exhibits in the centre the black, irregular 

 fungoid masses which are known under the name of Sclerotium 

 variuin, and which are believed to be the mycelium of certain 

 moulds in a high state of condensation." 



Now the Sclerotium variutn grows exactly as described by 

 Herr Anda ; but so far as it has appeared here, it does not seem 

 to be truly parasitical, but only begins to be developed on the 

 potato stalks when they are dying down of the common disease. 

 Whether this Sclerotium is the same as that referred to by Mr. 

 W. G. Smith (Nature, vol. xxviii. p. 299) I do not know, but 

 probably it is. He says he did not get his to germinate ; while 

 Herr Anda describes the fruit of the Sclerotia found at 

 Stavanger. 



From "pink eye" potato stalks of last year I threshed out a 

 quarter of a pound of Sclerotium varium, and at the present 

 time I have hundreds of specimens germinating in the way Herr 

 Anda describes ; one stalk only has yet come to what I regard 

 as the perfect fructification, having developed at the apex a 

 beautiful little cup ; but about a score of others of those first 



