October 19, 1906.J 



SCIENCE. 



499 



gama) was a rare one and had never before 

 been introduced into this country, the plants 

 were put in the greenhouse and carefully- 

 watched, but before they had made much 

 growth the propagator, Mr. Dawson, observed 

 that some animal was eating their tender 

 shoots. There were no rats, as a cat was kept 

 constantly about and Mr. Dawson was puzzled 

 to discover what new kind of pest he had in 

 his greenhouse. The thought that the damage 

 was done by cats never occurred to him, until, 

 after the plants were severely injured, when he 

 discovered some cat hairs on the half-eaten 

 branches, and, watching more closely, he 

 caught the hothouse cat eating not only the 

 small tender shoots, but the large woody twigs 

 as well. 



In the spring he set out over a hundred 

 small vines in a cold frame but, to his sur- 

 prise, after removing the protection which the 

 sash afforded, the cats of the neighborhood 

 destroyed the whole bed, eating the plants to 

 the ground. They were not just nibbled, as 

 are catnip or valerian, the only other plants 

 known to be eaten by cats, they were com- 

 pletely destroyed — gobbled up — even to stalks 

 as big as a lead pencil. 



No place in the arboretum is now concealed 

 enough to be safe from ravage, and the few 

 two-year-old vines in it are completely pro- 

 tected by wire nettings. Every leaf or twig 

 on these caged vines which is near enough the 

 wires to be within reach of claws is scratched 

 and torn to bits. In a few months time this 

 entirely new plant from the interior of China 

 has become the most relished vegetable which 

 our American cats have ever tasted. 



The plant has no odor that we can detect, 

 neither has it any distinct taste. Did the cats 

 scent it, or do cats, which are carnivorous 

 animals, make a practise of tasting every new 

 plant that comes within their ken? If they 

 do, they certainly excel in investigative facul- 

 ties the most civilized races of human beings. 

 Ihen too. how did the news spread so that in 

 a few months after its introduction all the 

 cats of the neighborhood knew of it? Did the 

 greenhouse cat communicate his discoveries 



to his friends, or did each cat make the test 

 independently ? 



The whole story throws an interesting side- 

 light on cat instinct and intelligence and 

 starts a score of questions. It is difficult to 

 see how there can be here an instinct inherited 

 through long generations of ancestry, for the 

 plant has been unknown in Europe and Amer- 

 ica until a few years ago. It seems to show 

 an alertness of cat intellect which is most 

 remarkable and which is in sharp contrast 

 with the reluctance of the average human 

 being to taste new things. 



David Fairchild, 

 Agricultural Explorer. 



Department of Aqricultube. 



SPECIAL ARTICLES. 

 evidences of several glacial and interglacial 



STAGES in northeastern NEW ENGLAND.^ 



While conducting an investigation of the 

 underground water resources of northeastern 

 New England during the present field season, 

 the writer has had occasion to visit many parts 

 of northeastern Massachusetts, southeastern 

 New Hampshire and southern Maine, and has 

 incidentally noticed numerous cuts and ex- 

 posures which throw light on the differentia- 

 tion of drift in this long-neglected section of 

 the country. There seems to be no longer any 

 doubt that in northern New England, as else- 

 where, there have been at least three distinct 

 ice advances, separated by interglacial stages; 

 and when more evidence has been obtained it 

 will probably be possible to definitely correlate 

 them with those of southern New England. 



The writer hopes in the near future to pub- 

 lish a detailed account of his observations and 

 conclusions. In the meantime a brief state- 

 ment of the formations observed and their 

 possible correlations with deposits in other 

 sections may be of some interest. 



1. Pre-Pleistocene (Prohably Tertiary) 

 Clays. — ^A deep boring made in Boston in 

 1905 penetrated over 100 feet of a fine light 

 gray to white, very pure clay, underlying all 

 glacial deposits. This clay appears to be of 



^Published by permission of the director of tlie 

 U. S. Geolopical Survey, 



