Oct. 28, 1880] 



NATURE 



607 



tion, though I should say, from the number of flowers fertilised, 

 that other agencies preponderate. E. L. Layard 



British Consulate, Noumea, New Caledonia, July 31 



Intellect in Brutes 



I CONFESS I do not see much " intellect " in a snake biting its 

 own tail (cf. Nature, vol. xxii. p. 40) ; on the contrary, I con- 

 sider the creature evinced remarkable stupidity. Perhaps how- 

 ever you will think what I now relate will show that snakes do 

 possess reasoning powers. 



Many years ago, while in Ceylon, I lived in a house in 

 " Slave Island," raised on a high platform. The steps up to 

 the door had become loosened, and behind them a colony of 

 frogs had established themselves. One morning I watched a 

 snake (a cobra) creep up, insert his head into a crack, and seize 

 a frog, which he there and then swallowed. But the crack that 

 admitted the thin Hat head and neck of the ophidian would not 

 permit of the same being withdrawn when the neck was swollen 

 with the addition of the frog inside it. The snake tugged and 

 struggled, but in vain, and after a series of futile attempts dis- 

 gorged its prey and withdrew its head. But the sight was too 

 tantalising. Again the head was inserted in the crack and the 

 coveted morsel swallowed, and again the vain struggles to with- 

 draw were renewed. / sa-M this repeated several times, till, 

 gaining wisdom by experience, the snake seized the frog by one 

 leg, withdrew it from its coigne of vantage, and swallowed it 

 outside. E. L. Layard 



I SEND you the following dog story, the truth of which is 

 vouched for by the young lady who owned the animal. Her 

 pet dog, a black-and-tan-terrier, was well known to the neigh- 

 bours for his intelligence. He had established a remarkable friend- 

 ship for a certain kitten, although given to fierce attacks on all 

 others. This kitten was infested with fleas, which, when the 

 dog discovered, he took her by the nape of the neck, in truly 

 parental fashion, and soused her up and dcrwn in a bucket of 

 water. He would then take her out into the sunshine and care- 

 fully I ick out the drowned fleas. 



A friend of mine, a naturalist, and a very conscientious man, 

 whose word can be implicitly trusted, gives the follo«'ing, to 

 which he was an eye-witness. His grandfather, then a very old 

 but hale and hearty man, had a splendid Newfoundland. There 

 was a narrow and precipitous road leading from the fields to the 

 house. It was regarded as a very dangerous place. One day 

 when the old gentleman was doing some work about the farm 

 his horse became alarmed and started off with the wagon along 

 this causeway. The chances were that he would da^h himself 

 and the empty wagon to pieces. At once the dog seemed to take in 

 the situation, although until that time he had been impassive. He 

 started after the horse at full speed, overtook him, caught the 

 bridle, and by his strength arrested the frightened creature until 

 help could reach him. My friend gives many other stories of 

 this fine dog, and thinks he had a decided sense of humour. I 

 will repeat that both of these tales come to me well authenti- 

 cated, and I could, by seeking permission, give names and 

 places. \V. Whitman Bailey 



Broun University, Providence, R. I. (U.S.A.), October 10 



Atmospheric Phenomenon 



Last evening (October 21) at 5.45 p.m. I observed four huge 

 radiating arms of faint white light, like the spokes of a gigantic 

 wheel, rising from a centre apparently on the west-south-west 

 horizon, and extending almost to the zenith. I say apparently 

 on the west-south-west horizon, because an intei'vening house pre- 

 vented me from seeing the nucleus of the diverging rays. The 

 aspect of the phenomenon was more suggestive of an amrora 

 than anything else I know of, but the beams of light seemed to 

 be quite stationary, and although I fancied their brilliancy in- 

 creased at one time for a few moments, I cannot be sure. Other 

 fainter rays appeared to me to divide the west south-west sky 

 with those I have mer.tioned ; but on that point I am also not 

 sure. The sun set at 4.53 p.m., .and twilight ended about 6.43 

 p.m., at which time the appearance I have attempted to describe 

 was no longer visible. The sky was heavily clouded. 



I should very much like to know the cause of this (to me) 

 singular exhibition of light. B. 



Kentish Town, N.W., October 22 



Temperature of the Breath 



With reference to the high reading, io7°-io8°, noticed by 

 Dr. Dudgeon when a thermometer tightly wr.apped up in the 

 folds of a silk handkerchief was kept in the mouth for five 

 minutes, might I ask Dr. Dudgeon if he has verified this reading 

 by immersing the thermometer, with a handkerchief tightly 

 rolled round its bulb, in a vessel of water, at say loS", the tem- 

 perature of the water being simultaneou^y taken by a standard 

 thermometer with its bulb uncovered ? It seems to me that there 

 is some danger of actually squeezing up the reading of a delicate 

 thermometer when twenty or thirty folds of a silk handkerchief 

 tightly encircle its bulb. F. J, M. P. 



October 23 



Crossing^Rapid Streams 



Having read some letters lately in your paper on the subject 

 of crossing rapid streams by means of carrying heavy stones, it 

 strikes me that the following may be of interest to your readers. 

 It is an extract from a survey report by Lieut, (now Major) 

 Woodthorpe, R.E., written in 1S76, describing the method, 

 which he saw practised by men of the Naga tribes, for crossing 

 a deep stream too rapid for their feeble powers of swimming, 

 and about twenty yards wide : — 



"Taking large stones in their hands, they waded in up to 

 their necks, and throwing up their legs and lowering their hands, 

 the stones carried them to the bottom, along which they crept on 

 all-fours till they reached the shallows on the other side." 



The rough bottom afforded them suflicient hold to withstand 

 the modified current and resist flotation. C. 



Mussoorie, September 28 



Construction of Telescopes and Microscopes 

 Perhaps some of your readers may be able to inform me 

 whether there exists in English or French a work on geometrical 

 optics, in v\hich the author applies himself thoroughly to explain 

 the optical (not the mechanical) construction of telescopes and 

 microscopes. Works like those by Parkinson and Polter stop 

 short exactly where the application of theor}' to the construction 

 of the best instruments begins. P. C. 



September 30 



BENJAMIN PEIRCE, F.R.S. 



WE regret to have to record the death at Cambridge, 

 Mass., on October 6, of Prof. Peirce of Harvard 

 University, following upon an illness of three months from 

 Bright's disease. Prof. Peirce was the son of a former 

 librarian of the Hniversity, Benjamin Peirce, who died in 

 1831. For the past thirty-five years he has occupied a pro- 

 fessorship at Harvard ; and as a lecturer, author, thinker, 

 and investigator, has not only ranked amongst the first of a 

 numerous corps of professors, but also among the first of 

 American men of science. Devoting himself originally to 

 mathematics, Prof. Peirce has successively pursued ex- 

 haustive studies in all the branches more closely allied 

 to mathematics, and has obtained eminence equally in 

 physics, astronomy, mechanics, and navigation. His 

 numerous investigations in these various departments, 

 while read before various scientific societies, have been 

 published, unfortunately, for the most part in the briefest 

 possible form, and the results of many of his researches 

 are to be found only in the manuals he published on 

 various subjects. As an author Prof. Peirce was highly 

 esteemed upon both sides of the Atlantic, his work on 

 analytical mechanics, which appeared in 1857, being 

 regarded then even in Germany as the best of its kind. 

 His chief works are a "Treatise on Algebra," a "Trea- 

 tise on Plane and Solid Geometry," " Pure Mathematics,'^ 

 a "Treatise on Sound," "Ocean Lanes for Steamships," 

 " Tables of the ISloon," " System of Analytic Mechanics," 

 "Potential Physics," "Linear .Associative Algebra," 

 ".Analytic Morphology," and " Criterion for the Rejec- 

 tion of Doubtful Observations." As a lecturer Prof. 

 Peirce was highly esteemed in both scientific and popular 

 circles. It is related that in 1S43, by a series of popular 



