FOREST AND STREAM. 



357 



winter by solid walls of frozen earth. A pet black snake, 

 confined in a well ventilated, unwarmed room, endured 

 weather when the mercury stood at zero in the open air, 

 but succumbed at twent}' - degrees below. I attribute his 

 death by freezing to the fact that he was not in a state of 

 complete hibernation, as he had frequently been handled 

 during the early winter, and thus partially aroused from 

 his stupor. A very interesting series of experiments could 

 foe made upon the hibernation of reptiles. 



"How is the water adder constituted that he can remain under 

 miter?" 



Cold blooded animals, such as serpents, consume little 

 food, and, even when in activity, little oxygen, in this re 

 spect forming a marked contrast with highly vitalized, 

 warm blooded animals. Birds, for instance, in their ner- 

 vous, restless activity, require incredibly large supplies of 

 food and a miniature blast furnace of oxygen to supply the 

 incessant waste of their tissues. Serpents, on the contrary, 

 pass the greater part of their -lives in a state of sluggish 

 xepose, much like that of the higher animals in hiberna- 

 tion. Hibernating mammals can be kept under water for 

 ;an hour at a time without harm, though three or four min- 

 utes would be sufficient to kill them if they were in their 

 natural state of activity. The nearly complete suspension 

 of all the functions of life reduces the demand for air, as 

 for food, almost to zero. The water snake, coiled up un- 

 der a stone at the hottom of a pond is not in a condition to 

 demand large supplies of oxygen. Still he requires some, 

 and a brief glance at his breathing apparatus will show us 

 where he gets it. Like most other serpents, he has only 

 •one lung, the other being present merely as a rudiment. 

 This lung extends a good deal more than half t\\i length of 

 his body, and the lower part is expanded into a membra- 

 nous sac, or bag, capable of containing a considerable 

 quantity of air. This bag stands Mr, Tropidonatus sipedon 

 in good stead in more ways than one. When he dives he 

 swallows his meal in a single mouthful, which is so ungen- 

 teelly large that it presses against his windpipe and stops 

 his breathing, so that for the time being he must get his 

 oxygen from his internal reservoir. Then when he makes 

 a voyage under water he can carry with him a cargo of 

 good fresh air. 



I have not compared the lungs of the water and land 

 snakes, but I imagine that very little difference would be 

 detected. Professor Agassiz made a very interesting series 

 of experiments witb a view to determining the relative 

 lung capacities of land and water turtles. He proceeded 

 by pumping a'd the air from the living turtle, then pump- 

 ing them full of water, then pumping out and measuring 

 the water. He found that the capacity of the lungs of the 

 land turtle averages twice as much in proportion to the 

 weight of the body as that of the water inhabiting species, 

 although the sea turtles carry a sufficient supply of air in 

 their lungs to enable them to remain under water a half 

 hour or more. 



It will be found that water animals, as a rule, have their 

 breathing organs much smaller than land animals. This 

 apparent paradox is explained by the fact that a large 

 amount of oxygen may be absorbed by the skin from the 

 air diffused through the water. G. Brown Goode 



Smithsonian Institution, January 3, 1874. 



-•-•-*- ■ — - 



DO SNAKES HISS? 



Editor Forest and Stream: — 



, Let any one tease a bull snake, and he will be satisfied 

 that they do. Last October I killed a snake on the prairie 

 in Adair county, Iowa, five feet long, about an inch thick, 

 tail extremely sharp, back dusky, and belly very brilliant 

 letnen color. No one there had ever seen or heard of such 

 a snake. I did not examine it to see if it was venomous. 

 Can some one tell me its name'? O. H. Hampton. 



MONKEY BRIDGE BUILDERS. 



Editor Forest and Stream: — 



To throw light upon doubtful questions or statements in 

 regard to anything in natural history, even if not concern- 

 ing game, is, I suppose, within the province of Forest 

 and Stream. In 8cribnefs for January, under the head 

 of "Nature and Science," is the following: — 



"In an article on this subject [bridge building] Mr. John 

 W. Murphy says:— The first bridge builders that were of 

 kin to humanity were of the monkey race. Travellers 

 who have been through the wilds of Africa, South Ameri- 

 ca, and portions of India, tell us how the monke}^ is a 

 bridge builder. The traveller has frequently described 

 how he has seen a convoy of monkeys making the attempt 

 to cross the stream, and "proceeding by a process which is 

 described in this wise:— The leading monkey climbsa tree, 

 as close to the shore as can be selected, holding by hisfore- 

 arms to the limb of the tree. He gives opportunity to 

 each succeeding monkey to entwine himself with his pre- 

 hensile tail, until, one after the other, they have become 

 so attached, head and tail (the height of' the tree being- 

 equal to the width of the stream), that the lower monkey, 

 starting forward from the ground, by a pendulum move- 

 ment swiugs himself to the opposite side of the stream. 

 He then climbs the nearest tree, and when he has gained 

 the height of the first monkey it Avill be easy to understand 

 that there will be formed a catenary curve of monkeys from 

 tree to tree across the stream. On this curve the youthful 

 monkeys, the comparatively infantile monkeys, and the 

 aged aionkeys cross in perfect safety, and no monkey, 

 either youthful, infantile, or aged, wets his feet in the 

 water in crossinc;. 



"Now let us see how our catenary bridge is removed 

 when its work is done. The first monkey by a, .signal from 

 the other side of the stream, lets go his hold of the limb 

 and swiugs gracefully to the opposite side. Now, if Dar- 

 win be correct, and we are descendants of a race of mon- 



keys, then it must be truthfully said that our ancestors 

 have given us the best thoughts and principles of bridge 

 construction." 



Humboldt, in his "Travels," (Bonn's ed., vol. 2, p. 69 

 says: — "The uniformity with which the araguatos {simia 

 ursina) perform their movements is extremely striking. 

 Whenever the branches of neighboring trees do not touch 

 each other the male who leads the party suspends himself 

 by (lie callous and -prehensile part of his tail; and, letting fall 

 the rest of his body swings himself till, in one of his os- 

 cillations, he reaches the neighboring branch. The whole 

 file perform the same movements on the same spot. It is 

 almost superfluous to add how dubious is the assertion of 

 Ulloa, and so many otherwise well-informed travellers, ac- 

 cording to whom the marimondos {simia belzebutli), the ara- 

 guatos, and other monkeys with a prehensile tail, form a 

 sort of chain in order to reach the opposite side of a river. 

 We had opportunities, during five years, of observing thou- 

 sands of animals, and for this veryreason we place no con- 

 fidence in statements possibly invented hy the Europeans 

 themselves, though repeated by the Indians of the missions 

 as if they had been transmitted to them by their fathers. 

 Man, the most remote from civilization, enjoys the aston- 

 ishment he excites in recanting the marvels of his country. 

 He says he has seen what he imagines msij have been seen 

 by others Eveiy savage is a hunter, and the stories of 

 hunters borrow from the imagination in proportion as the 

 animals of which they boast the artifices are endowed with 

 a high degree of intelligence. Hence, arises the fictions of 

 which foxes, monkeys, crows, and the condor of the Andes, 

 have been the subjects in both hemispheres." 



Certainly if such an eminent scientific and critical ob- 

 server as Humboldt fails to-see such an exhibition during 

 an observation of five years, seeing thousands of these ani- 

 mals, and characterized the story as dubious, the proba- 

 bilities are against its being witnessed by the ordinary trav- 

 eller. It is not the first time that a love for the marvellous 

 has led to invention or exaggeration. Probably in this case 

 the fact of the single monkey swinging from branch to 

 branch has been the foundation for the fiction of the chain. 



AYhile such stories may sometimes serve very prettily to 

 "point a moral or adorn a tale," it would seem to be in the 

 interest of science, and a desire for exact knowledge in all 

 departments of natural history, that anything doubtful or 

 bordering on the marvellous should be given currency with 

 caution, and especially should not be used as an introduc- 

 tion to an article on such a subject supposed to require ac- 

 curacy of statement as "Bridge Building." 



It would also seem to me, aside from the authority of 

 Humboldt, that a little thought would demonstrate the im- 

 probability of the bridge story. In the first place the pen- 

 dulum movement would require swinging room back of the 

 bank of the river, which the dense and luxuriant vegeta- 

 tion of the tropics would allow but in few places. Again, 

 when we realize that the pendulum must acquire sufficient 

 motion to attain a horizontal position to reach across the 

 stream, as wide as the tree is high, it is difheuk to conceive 

 where the motive power is to come from; surely not from 

 the swinging or swaying of the lower monkey of the liv- 

 ing chain, say twenty-five or thirty feet long. But given a 

 tree as high as the,stream isAvide, and granting the swinging 

 sufficient, the pendulum not being rigid, but a chain, would 

 sag, and diminish its reaching powers, if I may so speak, so 

 that when the end monkey of the chain had gained the 

 height of the first, the chord of the "catenary curve" would 

 not reach across the stream. And again, how could the 

 end monkey land on the opposite bank, as the description 

 quoted would seem to imply? for when in a direct line be- 

 tween the swinging point and the opposite bank he would 

 be a considerable distance from it, and his landing and 

 climbing the nearest tree would indicate a wonderful elastic 

 power in the chain. The strength and ability of the first 

 monkey to sustain the weight and tension of the swinging 

 chain described, and other points of doubt, might also be 

 su^a-ested. What says Forest and Stream? S.L.S. 



— J. T. Wilson, of Brighton, Massachusetts, writes to us 

 that he has a mounted specimen of a milk white wood- 

 cook, which was killed about fifteen years since by Elijah 

 Bronson in Milton, Massachusetts, and bagged at the time 

 with other cocks of the ordinary color and species. He 

 adds that this is the "only one I ever saw, but I think I 

 have heard of one in Troy, New York." [We will thank 

 our readers to continue their reports on albinoism, to fur- 

 nish data for a comprehensive article on this interesting 

 subject. The cumulative evidence of facts is invalua- 

 ble.']— Ed. t 



Department of Public Parks, ) 



Office of Menagerie, 

 New York, January 10th, 1874. ) 

 Animals received at Central Park Menagerie for the week 

 ending January 9th, 1874: — 



Two giraffes, Camelopardalis airaffa. Hah. Africa. 

 Placed on exhibition. 



Two sea lions, Eumetopsa* Htelleri. Hab. Northern Pa- 

 cific Ocean. Placed on exhibition. 



W. A. Conklin. 



One of your young legal gentlemen substituted a cus- 

 pidor for the old fashioned receptacle. Within an hour 

 after the purchase, two freshly lighted twenty cent cigars 

 rolled off the desk and disappeared in its yawning mouth. 

 Shortly after, a letter from his affianced, enclosing a photo- 

 graph, got joggled off and shot into the same chasm. Then 

 he took the cuspidor into the yard, and attacked it with an 

 axe. — Danbury News. 



» — 



THE BOX, AN INCREASE OF PLANTS. 



■ ♦ 



NUMBER IV. 

 "Throw hither all your quaint enameird eyes 

 That on the green turf suck the hurried showers, 

 And purple all the ground with venal flowers; 

 Bring the rath primrose that forsaken dies, 

 The tufted crow-tree and pale jessamine, 

 The white pink and the pansy frecked with let, 

 ' The glowing violet : 

 The musk-rose, and the well attired woodbines, 

 With houslick green that raise the pensive head, 

 And every flower that sad embroidery Weaves.'' 1 

 ■ ■* 



IN our last paper — No. III. — we gave our readers some 

 advanced idea.; with regard to improving and elaborat- 

 ing the plants in the box of earth within the common win- 

 dow. This you will at once admit can be very much im- 

 proved upon, and greater progress made in number of 

 plants and soils, and many ornamental additions intro- 

 duced as the simple results of suggestive embellishment. 

 You first commenced, perhaps, with a single rose tree, a 

 violet, or a hyacinth bulb. You learned in our practical 

 paper that a knowledge of the soil necessary to the growth 

 of these plants must, if not already known, be acquired. 

 You are now somewhat acquainted with the chemistry of 

 the making of soils, and preparing the same for your 

 plants. You have from a few simple instructions pro- 

 duced a perfect blossom of the rose, the violet, and the 

 hyacinth. You have learned that the soils thus prepared 

 will grow many of the species cultivated, and you have 

 not to learn this again; only to remember it. You now 

 propose to make a garden within your window, which we 

 will suppose to be a goodly-sized bay window, fronting on 

 a southerly aspect. Plants of one species love full sun- 

 shine, of another quiet shade, and of another sunlight and 

 shade, and some will rejoice in a tropical clime, warm an el 

 humid. These different climaterics you will have more or 

 less to imitate or produce, if you would rejoice your eyes 

 with fairy grottoes or tropical dells in a miniature window 

 garden. All these you can have in a greater or less degree 

 of perfection, according as you are skilled or unskilled in 

 the works of your hands. Your box may be made to fit 

 into the window seat only, or made larger and deeper, as 

 hereinafter described ; if for the seat only the width may 

 be such as to bring it nearly out to the sides of the room, 

 say a shelf of three feet in width by. fifteen inches in 

 height. This may be made of half inch pine, with a good 

 bottom. In this box you can place a zinc pan, with a hole- 

 in the bottom, to hold the earth, and with a good drain- 

 age; fill it with broken crock even with the top of the zinc 

 pan, which is to be four inches in depth. Having now 

 filled in your earth to the right depth, you can plant out 

 quite a variety of plants, being careful not to put in too 

 many plants or too close together. Nursing plants is one 

 thing, and massing them another. 



With such a base as you have before you jo\i can create 

 a beautiful exhibition of winter blossoming flow T ers, con- 

 sisting of many varieties. On each end of } r our box next 

 the window you can place some upright round pine rods, 

 one inch in diameter, at proper distances from each other, 

 and upon these narrow shelves small pots may be placed. 

 These shelves may be many or few in number, according 

 as you may desire. You can create at one end a sort of 

 rock work, and leave small niches for prepared earth, to 

 germinate the crocus, the cacti, oxalis, small ferns, and 

 many interesting climbing and trailing plants. The effect 

 of this may be enhanced by covering the rough framework 

 of shelves with a paper, sanded and painted, to resemble 

 rock. Small, clear pieces of granite rock, etc., can be 

 used very effectively in this connection, but all this requires 

 taste and study, as well as a knowledge of soils and plants, 

 Have your shelves so constructed that they do not occupy 

 more than six or seven inches of your box, and then you 

 can commence the planting of your box at once. Your 

 rock work may be, if you desire, two or three feet in 

 height, if well constructed. Now r , we suppose you will 

 like to plant some flowers that love the sun. Suppose you 

 try with one or two fine hardy rose bushes — say four gera- 

 niums, fine plants, different varieties, but of nearly the 

 same size, two heliotropes, two verbenas, one daphne, and 

 one azalia. These you well know are to be placed near the 

 glass, and may without detriment have the full direct rays 

 of the sun, and they will flourish if well attended to other- 

 wise. You can also set in this box hyacinths, crocuses, 

 etc. , near the base of the shelf of rock work, and at the 

 part having the least sun two or three good strong English 

 violet roots, sinking the pots even with the level of the 

 earth in your window box. If, as is the case sometimes, 

 you have in your box case a cool recess at one side or end, 

 then this is just the place for a well potted camelia to 

 stand. Camelias always delight in cool, moist atmospheres, 

 and this should be ever kept in mud. 



You can grow in such a box as the one here described 

 the calla lily, canna, marsanta, and bavardias, and among 

 the rock work several kinds of rare and curious plants and 

 bulbs. The- striped grasses, if not too profusely used, give 

 a pleasing effect to the corners of the rock work, while a 

 spray or two of the variegated periwinkle will be very ef- 

 fective. Upon these bits of rock work, as you progress 

 with your study, you can place several species of mosses, 

 which will be perfectly' at home in such a situation as this. 



Some time since I gave a plan for the construction of 

 quite a large window box, designed to stand within a large 

 ■sized bay window, into which I introduced a sort of .sub- 

 tropical clime with good success. Among its attractive 



