FOREST AND STREAM. 



165 



The American Dkeu. — The precise relationships of cer- 

 tain species of American deer to European analogues, the 

 moose, the reindeer, and the elk especially, have been the 

 subject nf critical consideration on the part of naturalists 

 for many years past, some maintaining that they are iden- 

 tical, and others that they are distinct, No one" has given 

 Die matter more attention than Judge Caton, of Illinois, 

 who [or many years baa bad in his large park uear his resi- 

 dence al Ottawa specimens of nearly all the American 

 species, where lie has carefully studied their habits. 



Quite recently Judge Caton Visited the north of Europe 

 for the purpose of examining the Old World forms in life. 

 and has satisfied himself, from careful study, of the abso- 

 lute identity of the moose and caribou of the two con- 

 tinents, and of the very close relationship between the 

 American elk and the European stag. One character Of 

 much importance in the deer consists in the presence and 

 shape and entire absence of a peculiar gland on the meta- 

 tarsus of the hind leg. this being indicated, if present, by 

 a tuft of hair of a particular shape, and varying with the 

 species. The American representatives of the moose and 

 caribou do not possess such a gland; and as Dr. John Ed- 

 ward Gray asserts its existence in the European species. 

 Judge Caton at one time inferred a specific distinction. 

 He now finds, however, that equally with the American 

 they are destitute of the gland, and that there is absolutely 

 no point in which they can be separated. 



In regard to the relationship between the European stag 

 and theArnerican elk, he finds the principal difference to be 

 in the smaller size of the former. Fossil remains, how- 

 ever, show a size equal to our variety, with antlers equally 

 large, and with all the distinguishing peculiarities, even to 

 the occasional presence of a snag on the brow antler, which 

 occurs in about five per cent, of our elk; but never, so fat- 

 as Judge Caton could learn, in the European animal of 

 modern times. The two also inbreed perfectly well in Eu- 

 ropean forests, with fertile progeny. 



This entire subject will probably be thoroughly eluci- 

 dated by Judge Caton in an exhaustive work on the Ameri- 

 can eervida?., upon which he has been engaged for some 

 years past. — Harper's Weekly. 



»'» 



The Driver Ants.— Rev. J. G. Wood, in his fascinat- 

 ing hook, "Strange Dwellings," describes the habits of the 

 terrible driver ants of Western Africa, so named because 

 no animals can withstand them. Even the agile monkey 

 they have been known to destroy. When they enter a pig 

 sty "they soon kill the inmates, who have no chance to es- 

 cape, and those tough hides are no protection against the 

 enormous jaws and dreadful teeth of the driver ant. As 

 for fowls, they make short work of killing them, rnurdcr- 

 inc a whole hen roost full in a single, night, and afterwards 

 digging out. the feathers and devouring the birds. All rep- 

 tiles, and even snakes, are their victims. They commence 

 on a snake by biting its eyes, so that it writhes helplessly 

 on one spot instead of gliding away. They march in arm- 

 ies, curiously arrayed, preferring nights or cloudy days; 

 or, if the sun shines hotly, constructing arches over their 

 path, of dirt agglutinated with a fluid"exuded from their 

 mouths. This "dread of the sun's rays, reported by Dr. 

 Savage, seems strangely inconsistent with the statement of 

 Dr. Livingston, that heat has but little effect upon them. 

 He says that he put the bulb of a thermometer three inches 

 under" the soil, in the sun at mid day, and found the tem- 

 perature to be 132 dog. to 134 deg. Beetles placed upon 

 the surface ran about a few seconds and expired. But this 

 boiU'ng heat only augmented the activity of the ants. 

 (Perhaps Livingstou here refers to another species, though 

 Mr. Wcod quotes the passage in his description of the 

 driver ants.) They have no vistage of external eyes, nor 

 does the microscope detect in them any visual organs what- 

 ever. The horny head covering is, however, translucent, 

 and they may recognize through that at least the difference 

 between light and darkness. Fire, which will frighten al- 

 most any creature, has no terrors for the driver ant, which 

 will dash at a glowing coal, fix its jaws in the burning 

 mass, and shrivel up in the heat, They do not willingly 

 enter water, but when they are compelled to cross a river 

 on a march, they bridge it with festoons of their own 

 bodies. 



■»•♦ 



A Bird Ghost Story.— The Athenceum, noticing a book 

 on birds, says; — "Birds have a great fear of death. A hen 

 canary belonging to the author died while nesting, and 

 was buried. "The surviving mate was removed to another 

 cage; the breeding cage itself was thoroughly purified, 

 cleansed, and put aside" till the following Spring. Never 

 afterwards, however, could any bird endure to be in that 

 cage. The little creatures fought and struggled to get out, 

 and, if obliged to remain, they huddled close together and 

 moped, and were thoroughly unhappy, refusing to be cum 

 forted by any amount of sunshine or damty food. The 

 experiment was tried of introducing foreign birds, who 

 were not even in the house when the canary died, nor 

 could, by any possibility, have heard of her through other 

 canaries. The result was the same; no bird would live in 

 that cage. The cage was haunted, and the author was 

 obliged" to desist from all other attempts to coax or force a 

 bird to stay in it. _ 



Prompt Education.— The following note from a Cana- 

 dian correspondent brings an interesting bit of news, from 

 its novelty. Perhaps some of our readers may have had 

 some such experience before. If so, should be pleased to 



hear from them. 



Danville, Canada, Oct. 17, 187-1. 

 Editor Foke=t ash Stkeam:— 



1 have a pair or out cjtum.ni wimds [...nridies. canijht wild from the 

 forest lew than a month. Thev are so tame that they will eat from my 

 hand r.'iirttlv. t never heard of each an instance before. 



Yours truly i M. W. Clabk. 



— The exhibition of useful aud noxious insects in Paris, 

 recently opened in the Tuileries Gardens, was highly inter- 

 esting and useful. _^ 



CENTRAL, PARK MENAGERIE. 



faodhmd, Jpaw and %mdm. 



LILIUM LANCIFOLIUM. 



DBPABTMENT OF PUBLIC PARKS, I 



NJ5W Tonic. Oct. 18, 1874. f 

 Animals received at Central Park Menagerie for the week endius 

 October 17th, 1S74: 

 Two WMte Pelicans, Pdicanus onocrottiluo. Hob. Southern Europe. 

 One Marabou Stork, Utfop'llus crumiitlfa-ui . Had. West Africa. 

 Two Elands, Oreat car,ua. Had. South Africa. 

 One Horned Owl, Bubo Virginianm. Presented by Dr. E. Sterling of 



" One'whito-tbroated Sapajon, CtfW b.ijpaUu.j,,; Presented by Mrs. 

 Outhrie. W. A. Coxkun. 



THERE cau be no handsomer pot plant introduced 

 among your numerous varieties than the liliiim lanci- 

 foliiim. They are beautiful for either the conservatory, 

 parlor, or the sitting-room. We have grown these lillies 

 for yeius, and never thought them difficult of culture. 

 The want of success complained of by " A. M," of Min- 

 nesota, we cannot account for on any other ground than 

 that he made his soil too rich and his pots too large. 



Our own manner of planting . this bulb has been as fol- 

 lows, and we have never failed of obtaining good, strong 

 flowers . We provide for the Japan lillies pots certainly 

 not less than fourteen inches in diameter ; we plant three 

 bulbs in each of these pots. Always if possible select the 

 double-crowned bulbs, as they are the best for culture in 

 pots— single eyes do not give you good satisfaction. You 

 now want, a good, fair drainage of broken crock at the 

 bottom of your pot ; now you will very carefully prepare 

 a compost for your bulbs, containing three parts of good 

 peat soil, one part fresh loam ; this with one part of old 

 rotted pasture sod, and one part of coarse river sand is 

 all you require. Mix these together, fill your pot to within 

 four inches of the rim, place the bulbs at equal distance 

 from each other, aud do not fill up the pot to the top, 

 leaving the crown of the bulb exposed. Your best time to 

 plant will be from 10th November to 10th February. They 

 should be protected and kept from cold. If you have not 

 a greenhouse of your own some of your friends having one 

 will let you use it. Let no water drop upon them. They 

 can also be left in a light cellar where no frost can chill or 

 blight them ; let them have ull the ah- they want. AVhile 

 in this state, as they are slowly forming rootlets, I hey re- 

 quire only a moderate supply of moisture. Let the soil in 

 the pots be neither wet nor dry, but a medium between 

 the two. As they begin to push the green shoots or young 

 leaves they require more water. At this period these 

 bulbs are sometimes troubled with an enemy called " green 

 fly." Rout him out at once with the fumes of tobaccc- 

 smoke ; he is no lover of tobacco, aud will be sure "to get' 

 as soon as you smoke him. Olllpod Quill. 



♦•♦ 



The Sleep and Odor of Flowers. — Sir John Lub- 

 bock, in speaking before the British Association concern- 

 ing the fertilization of flowers by insects, said; — "Every- 

 body, however, has observed that even in fine weather 

 certain flowers close at particular hours. This habit of 

 going to sleep is very curious. Why should flowers do so? 

 In animals we can understand it; they are tired aud require 

 it. But why should flowers do so? Whv should some 

 flowers do so and not others? Moreover, different flowers 

 keep different hours. The daisy opens at sunrise and 

 closes at sunset, whence its name day's eve. The dande- 

 lion {Leontodon tarazieum) opens at seven and closes at five. 

 The ArmQrw rubra is open from nine to three. The ear 

 hawkweed (Hkraciwn pihseUa) is said to wake at eight and 

 go to sleep at two; the scarlet pimpernel {AnagallU arvim- 

 sit) to wake at seven aud close soon after two; while the 

 Trogoppgon peatenm opens at four in the morning and 

 closes just before twelve, whence its English name 'John- 

 go-to-bed-at-noou.' Parmer boys in some parts are said to 

 regulate their dinner hour by it. Other flowers, on the 

 contrary, open in the evening. Now it is obvious that 

 flowers which are fertilized by night-flying insects would 

 derive no advantage from being open by day; on the other 

 hand, those which are fertilized by bee's would gain noth- 

 ing by being open at night — nay, it would be a distinct dis- 

 advantage, because it would render them liable to be robbed 

 of their honey and pollen by insects which are not capable 

 of fertilizing them. He believed, then, that the closing of 

 flowers had reference to the habits of insects. He observed 

 also, in support of this, that wind-fertilized flowers never 

 sleep; that some of those flowers which attract insects by 

 smell emit their scent at particular hours. Thus the Vex- 

 pris raatruiudis aud Lyekius vcapertina smell in the evening, 

 i'incl [I,.- "<-li i.< ■■,',-■ i (■',! is particularly sweet at uighl. Ho 

 had been, he said, good humoredly accused of attacking 

 the little busy bee, because he had attempted to show that 

 it does not possess all the high qualities which have been 

 popularly and politically ascribed to it; but if scientific 

 observations do not altogether support the intellectual emi- 

 nence which has been ascribed to bees, they have made 

 known to us in the economy of the hive many various pe- 

 culiarities which no poet had ever dreamt of, and having 

 shown that bees and other insects have ati importance as 

 regards flowers which had been previously unsuspected. 

 To these we owe the beauties of our garden, the sweetness 

 of our fields. To them flowers owe their scent and color — 

 nay, their very existence in its present form. Not ouly 

 have their brilliant colors, the sweet scent and the honey 

 of flowers been gradually developed by unconscious selec- 

 tion of insects, but the very arrangement of the colors, 

 the circular bonds and radiating lines, the form, size, and 

 position of the petals, the arrangement of the stamens ami 

 pistil are all arranged with reference to the visits of in- 

 sects, and in such a manner as to insure the grand object 

 which renders these visits necessary. In conclusion, he 

 observed that while, he had attempted to point out relations 

 which exist between insects aud some of our wild flowers, 

 and the whole subject is one which will repay most care- 

 ful attention, for, as Muller has very truly said, there is no 

 single species the whole history of which is yet by an}' 

 means thoroughly known to us." 



Tuberose Bulbs. — There are a few rules that the nov- 

 ice in these matters must bear in mind. Do not undertake 

 to dry the bulb with all the top on; do not cut it, off too 

 near the crown of the bulb. Either proves injurious. The 

 first, because there is such a mass of green, succulent 

 growth to wither up, aud consequently to "engender decay; 

 aud the latter because there will be greal "danger of de- 

 stroying the germ in the centre. 1 have see.u bulbs to all 

 outward appearances sound and healthy, but when I ex- 

 amined this vital poiut 1 found it gone beyond recovery, 

 and the bulb was necessarily worthless. My practice is to 

 dig them as soon as the first frost injures "the leaves, cut 

 them down to say three inches of the bulb, and then spread 

 them thinly on a shutter, or, what is better, a slatted fmrue, 

 and place them in the sun or near fire heat, until every 

 vestige of moisture has departed. It is really won- 

 derful how much vitality there is in the leaves of this beau- 

 tiful flower, for not unfi'equently one has to wait for sev- 



eral weeks before they are ready to store away. When 

 once thoroughly dried, I simply place them in a box with- 

 out any packing material whatever, and keep them in a 

 warm and perfectly dry place. The cellar near a furnace 

 will answer, provided there is no dampness in the air. It 

 is a good plan to examine them carefully dialing the Win 

 ter to sec if there is any moisture present, and if it is de- 

 tected take them out at. "once, and again spread thinly over 

 the lop of a furnace or other surface, to remain until dry 

 once more. 



*««■■ 



Pruning and Training Fruit Trees.— Our most suc- 

 eessful pomologists agree that a standard tree in an orchard 

 should have live or six ftet of a clean, straight stem. 

 Straightness can be perfectly obtained by keeping the 

 young tree tied to a stake until it has acquired strength 

 and firmness enough to support itself in a straight position. 

 All shoots proceeding front I he stent, below the first tier 

 of branches forming the head, should be rubbed off with 

 the hand while tender, as if allowed to grow they retard the 

 development of 1he head and impair the form and habit of 

 the treo. In forming the head of a young standard a vigo- 

 rous upright root should be secured for a leader, and three 

 or four others of the most vigorous to form branches or 

 boughs. A laxness or slenderness of habit can be cor- 

 rected by pinching off the ends of the branches, produc- 

 ing a more horizontal growth. At the present time, in the 

 growing season, young trees will be pushint: vigorously, 

 and as a general thing will have made growth enough to 

 enable the orchardist to perceive what form they are about 

 to assume — whether the young branches are from the right 

 place, and in the right direction to reach the desired form. 

 If they are not, they should be set. right at once by rubbing 

 off shoots that tire not wanted, pinching the. top off to re- 

 tard such as are pushing too vigorously to the detriment of 

 others. An equality of growth among the shoots intended 

 for the main branches, or frameworli of the tree, should 

 be maintained; and where a surplus of small branches in 

 the interior are appearing, giving the tree a bushy or twiggy 

 look, a sufficient number of them should be removedto 

 allow T the others to acquire a full and vigorous growth. 

 The ordinary' mode of proceeding is to allow the trees to 

 grow as nature and circumstances may direct during the 

 Summer, and in Winter or Spring correct by pruning, etc., 

 any defects or deformities that may have arisen. This is 

 not wdiat we call good culture. — New York Herald. 



Rules for Choosing Poultry. — In the choice of poul- 

 try, the age of the bird is l he chief poiut to be attended to. 

 A young turkey has a smooth, black log; in an old one, the 

 legs are rough and reddish. In domestic fowls, the combs 

 aud the legs are smooth when the bird is vouug; and rough 

 when it is old. The bills aud the feet of 'geese are yellow, 

 and have few hairs upon them when the bird is young; but 

 they are red if it be old. The feel of a goose are pliable 

 when the bird is fresh killed; aud dry aud stiff when it has 

 been some time killed. Geese are called green till they are 

 two or three months old. Ducks should be chosen by the 

 feet, which should be supple; and they should also have a 

 plump and hard breast. The feet of a tame duck are yel- 

 lowish — those of a wild oue reddish. Pigeons should 

 always be eaten while they are fresh; when they look 

 flabby aud discolored about the under part, they have been 

 kept too long. The feet, like those of most other poultry, 

 show the age of the bird; when they are supple, it is young; 

 when stiff, it is old. Tame pigeons are larger than wild 

 pigeons. Partridges have yellow legs, and it dark colored 

 bill when young. They are not in season till after the first 

 of Sep leinber. — K*i amack. 



■ »»♦ 



The Effect of Lightning on Trees.— The theory 

 that the splitting of the truuks of trees by lightning is the 

 result of the suddeu evaporation of the liquids contained 

 within them has received much confirmation from experi- 

 ments made by Osborn Reynolds, who succeeded in split- 

 ting small sticks of wood by passing the electric spark 

 through them after they had been impregnated with water. 

 He also burst small glass tubes, which were filled with 

 water, although the same tubes, when empty, allowed the 

 electric spark to jump through them without in the least 

 destroying them. The most striking experiment made by 

 him was upon a tube three eighths of an inch exterior and 

 one eighth interior diameter, which could stand a pres- 

 sure of at least 200 atmospheres to the square inch; this 

 tube was fourteen incites long, and bent at a right angle. 

 A very large electric flash being sent through the tube, it 

 was split by the first discharge, aud the pieces thrown to a 

 distance of* several feet. The inner surface of the tube 

 was, iu fact, completely pulverized, as though it had been 

 struck by a hammer. "Reynolds estimates that the pressure 

 must have beeu more than 1,000 atmospheres. 

 ♦•♦ — 



Is Your Land Poor? — If so, it is because It lacks either 

 phosphoric acid, potash, lime, soda, or nitrogen, or per- 

 haps ail of these. The other six minerals required by 

 plants as food are generally found in the soil in sufficient 

 quantities to supply the plants, while the soil is generally- 

 lacking in those named above, and which are indispensable 

 to their growt.li and vigor. Aud in proportion as you sup- 

 ply the deficient article to your poor land, so you add to 

 the health and vigor of the plants, enabling them to draw 

 a large proportion of their food from the air, and thereby 

 increasing your crops nearly three to one. 

 -*•♦■ 



A PlNEs Woods Hog. — Of all the woe-be-gone-looking 

 animals, nothing, we think, can be compared to the hogs 

 that are generally seen on the farms in Florida. They are 

 neither alligator nor deer, but partake of the characteristics 

 of both, with the snout of one, and the legs of the other. 

 Pood is completely thrown away on these wretched things, 

 aud it requires years to bring fat enough on them to grease 

 a gun ban el. — Florida Agrieiilturixt. 



»**■ 



— A gentleman who lately visited Cape Breton, went to 

 see a tree at Margaree which has obtained some notoriety 

 on account of its great size, and is probably the largest 

 known .specimen iu the Province. Its circumference, six 

 feet from the ground, is twenty-four feet, four inches At 

 a heighl of about twenty feet it has three branches of six 

 to uiiie feet circumference each. The branches overhang 

 an area of about sixty feet diameter. This denizen is of 

 the yellow birch species, and is situated in an alder swamp 

 on The farm of Mr, Lauchliu McDonald. 



Florida Lands. — Good land is selling lor from one to 

 five dollars per acre one mile back of Mandarin, Florida. 

 This would be a good place for a hotel. 



