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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



wearing away of the tips of the feathers. 

 Of the effect of food and environment upon 

 the colors of bird plumage, Mr. Keeler be- 

 lieves that the direct influence of the envi- 

 ronment plays an important part in the evolu- 

 tion of colors, and regarding food he quotes 

 Mr. Frank Beddard, who says in Animal 

 Coloration : "If the nature of animal colors 

 is borne in mind, it seems impossible to 

 doubt the modifying action of food; those 

 that are due to structural peculiarities of the 

 parts colored (e. g., feathers of many birds), 

 may be altered just as much as those that 

 are caused by the deposition of pigment ; for 

 the ' structural ' colors depend largely upon 

 pigment for their manifestation. . . . When 

 there is an obvious relation between waste 

 matter and the skin pigments, it can not be 

 doubted that variation only in the amount of 

 the food may lead to color changes." Some 

 interesting color evolutions are given in the 

 chapter entitled The Direct Influences of 

 the Environment ; for instance, if a yellow 

 canary is fed with cayenne pepper, it will 

 cause the feathers to turn red ; carmine was 

 given to some canaiies and the yellow feath- 

 ers became white ; while Amazon parrots 

 change from green to yellow when fed upon 

 the fat of certain fishes. Notwithstanding 

 the exhaustive manner in which Mr. Keeler 

 has treated the subject, he says that " the 

 paper is written more with the hope of 

 stimulating thought, and inciting in a new 

 and as yet almost untrodden field of ornitho- 

 logical inquiry, than with the expectation of 

 reaching definite results." 



Behavior of Young Snakes. — One of the 



most curious matters connected with the 

 breeding habits of certain snakes is the 

 " egg-tooth," a small tooth fixed to the 

 united premaxillary bones, and projecting 

 slightly forward, beyond the edge of the up- 

 per lip. It is present only in the embryo, 

 and is shed very shortly after the escape of 

 the young snake from the egg. This tooth 

 is employed by the little snake in ripping 

 open the tough egg-covering in its efforts to 

 escape from its prison. The young of the 

 Heterodon (a snake closely allied to the cop- 

 perhead) are perhaps the most amusing 

 youngsters of the snake family. In Volume 

 XV of the United States National Museum, 

 0. P. Hay, in a paper entitled On the Breed- 



ing Habits, Eggs, and Young of Certain 

 Snakes, gives a very interesting account of 

 the singular habits of the young Heterodon 

 from personal observation. Having received 

 a consignment of twenty-seven eggs, which 

 were supposed to be those of the copper- 

 head snake, he watched the bursting from 

 the tough, parchment-like egg-covering of 

 the young snakes, and exactly eight days 

 after the receipt they were all hatched, the 

 length varying from seven to eight inches. 

 " From the moment of escape from the egg 

 all were quite active and manifested the 

 characteristics of the adults. ... A faint 

 hiss was uttered, but that may not have been 

 voluntary. One would sometimes flatten its 

 head and body and rear up with the anterior 

 third of its length from the ground. If one 

 did not know well their inoffensive natures, 

 one would be excused for fearing to handle 

 them. An exceedingly singular habit pos- 

 sessed by the adults (which is also practiced 

 by the young) is that of feigning death." On 

 being struck or teased, they will roll over 

 as if in the intensest agony, and then throw 

 themselves on the back and lie there as if 

 dead. If left undisturbed for a little while 

 they would turn over and creep slyly away. 

 In this paper Mr. Hay treats the peculiar 

 appearance of the eggs of snakes, which 

 bring forth their young alive, very interest- 

 ingly, and it would seem that even in these 

 also there is present the singular egg-tooth. 



Precautions against the Lizard. — A su- 

 perstition prevails among the Shuswap In- 

 dians of British Columbia that a man who 

 sees a small lizard of a particular species 

 is followed by it wherever he may go during 

 the day, till at length, when he is asleep dur- 

 ing the following night, it finds him, and, en- 

 tering his body, proceeds to tear out his 

 heart, so that he quickly dies. The late Mr. 

 Bennett, of Spallumsheen, told Dr. Dawson 

 in 187*7 that the Indians employed by him in 

 making a ditch for purposes of irrigation, on 

 coming into camp in the evening, would 

 jump several times over the fire in order to 

 lead the possibly pursuing lizard to enter the 

 fire and be destroyed in attempting to cross. 

 He also noticed that they carefully tied up 

 the legs of their trousers when retiring. 

 If, while at work during the day, they saw 

 one of these little lizards, which appeared to 



