162 NATURAL HISTORY MISCELLANY. 
have sprung from the same roots that bore the white flowers ob- 
served the year previous, they having apparently resumed their 
specific color. 
During the autumn of 1868 I discovered in Northern Iowa a 
specimen of Liatris cylindrica with perfectly white flowers, all the 
flowers upon the three stalks from the same root being white. 
This seems more remarkable than that of the white clover men- 
tioned, because the usual color of the latter is at best only spe- 
cific, while rose-red is regarded as the invariable color of all the 
species of Liatris. In other words, the color is a generic char- 
acter. —C. A. WHITE. 
[We print this notice, with the remark, once for all, that occa- 
sional white flowers may be expected in any species, so that it is 
hardly worth while to specify numerous particular instances.— 
Eps. } 
ZOOLOGY. 
Poison or THE Copra.—At the meeting of the Boston Society 
of Natural History, January 18th, Mr. George Sceva gave the re 
sults of an experiment which he had recently made in connection 
with Dr. Thomas Dwight, Jr., with the poison of the Cobra di 
Capello, Naja tripudians. > 
January 8th, one quarter of a grain of the dried poison, which 
had been kept a little more than seven months, was put into twenty 
drops of water, the poison dissolved, and the liquid reduced by 
evaporation at a temperature of 85° F., to four drops. This was 
exposed to the air at a temperature of 22°, and was completely 
frozen in four minutes, the warmth of the porcelain vessel retard- 
ing the process slightly. The poison was allowed to remain in the 
frozen state for sixteen hours, during which time the temperature 
fell to 8°, or 24° below the freezing point, On the following 48y» _ 
January 9th, the poison was thawed and diluted with three or four 
drops of water, and two drops of the liquid injected with a fine- 
pointed syringe into the pectoral muscle of a pigeon, about half an 
inch from the keel of the sternum, the point of the syringe pene 
trating the muscle about one eighth of an inch. This part of the 
pigeon’s body was selected in order to avoid wounding Ny of 
the viscera or large blood vessels. ae 
