280 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



getting angry, shoots an arrow which misses 

 the sun, and causes the prairie to take fire. 

 The man in the moon is an Indian, who 

 chopped wood every day, including Sunday, 

 whereupon the moon came down and seized 

 him, and he has been up there ever since. 

 In the same manner the stars are supposed 

 to be Indians, who have " got up into the 

 sky " from time to time ; thunder is caused 

 by a great bird, and the lightning by the 

 arrows which it shoots. Their version of the 

 flood is a very quaint piece of folk lore, and 

 apparently entirely original with them. In 

 a report of the British Association for the 

 Advancement of Science, on the Northwest- 

 ern Tribes of Canada, Mr. A. F. Chamberlain 

 describes this legend very interestingly, and 

 in his pamphlet, which covers almost every 

 trait and characteristic of the Kootenays, as 

 well as statistics of the development of their 

 language and customs, he relates the strange 

 history of their sociology, folk lore, physical 

 characteristics, etc. The monograph is pub- 

 lished at the offices of the association at 

 Burlington House, London. 



Animals for Pets. — What is required for 

 an every-day pet, says the London Spectator, 

 is that it shall be beautiful and intelligent ; 

 that it shall neither be too large nor too deli- 

 cate ; and, if a bird, that it shall sing or talk 

 — preferably both. The limits set by size 

 and constitution are the main consideration 

 in the choice of pets. Yet even so, the pos- 

 sible range is very great, and might well ex- 

 tend far beyond the species which form the 

 main body of those usually seen at home. 

 Tame rabbits are plenty, but tame hares are 

 rare. A charming little foreign pet for the 

 house is the suricate, " an active and viva- 

 cious little fellow, some ten inches long, with 

 greenish-brown fur, large bright eyes, a short 

 pointed nose, and dainty paws, which, like the 

 squirrel's or the raccoon's, are used as hands, 

 to hold, to handle, and to ask for more. . . . 

 The creature is made for a pet, and is so af- 

 fectionate to its master that it can undergo 

 any degree of 'spoiling' without injury to 

 its temper." A larger and more beautiful 

 creature is the brown opossum from Tasmania 

 — the "sooty phalangist" — with fur of the 

 richest dark brown covering its prehensile 

 tail like a fur boa. " Its head is small, with 

 a pink nose and very large brown eyes ; and 



it has a ' compound ' hand, with claws on its 

 fingers, and an almost human and clawless 

 thumb, with the aid of which it can hold a 

 wineglass, or eat jam out of a teaspoon. 

 That owned by the writer was, without ex- 

 ception, the most fearless and affectionate 

 pet he has ever known. In the evening, 

 when it was most lively, it would climb on 

 to the shoulder of any of its visitors, and 

 take any food given it. It had a mania for 

 cleanliness, always 'washing' its hands after 

 taking food, or even after running across the 

 room, and was always anxious to do the same 

 office by the hands of any one who fed it. 

 It made friends with the dogs, and would 

 ' wash ' their faces for them, catching hold 

 of an old setter's nose with its sharp little 

 claws, to hold it steady while it licked its 

 face. The staircase and banisters furnished 

 a gymnasium for exercise in winter, and in 

 summer it could be trusted among the trees 

 in the garden." The American gray squir- 

 rel, the coati, the mongoose, the marmot, 

 and the prairie dog are commended as pleas- 

 ant pets in their various ways ; but only one 

 monkey — the capuchin — is thoroughly recom- 

 mended as an indoor pet. No other monkey 

 approaches it in good temper and pretty, win- 

 ning ways. They all have good, round heads, 

 with black fur on the top and light brown on 

 the cheeks. Their faces are most expressive 

 and seldom still, for they take deep and abid- 

 ing interest in everything in or about their 

 cages. One is mentioned which had learned 

 to put out burning paper by beating it with 

 its hands or knocking it against the floor. 

 Another, if it got a match, would collect a 

 heap of straw, strike the match, light its bon- 

 fire, and dance around it. " The capuchin is 

 so small, so pretty, and so clever that it seems 

 to embody all the good and none of the bad 

 points of monkey nature." 



Spinal Curvature in Schools. — The re- 

 sult was recently presented by Dr. Scudder, 

 of Boston, of an investigation into the seat- 

 ing of thirty-five hundred schoolgirls, with 

 especial reference to its effect on the spine. 

 Lateral curvature of the spine, the author 

 said, is probably due to several factors, among 

 which are the weight of the body f ailing upon 

 a weakened spine ; weakness of the spine in 

 bone, muscle, or ligament; and a position 

 persistently out of the median antero-poste- 



