~~ a. * 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
a 
BOS 
a: 
every camp should be, to meet anything that was likely to 
come in the way of wind or rain, A guy rope was attached 
to the tent poles and the end made fast to a tree as a matter 
of precaution should a gale come on; the tent stakes were 
driven a little deeper toinsure against their drawing in case 
the ground should become soaked, and lastly, straw was 
Blnced around the edges of the tent to keep out the wind and 
rip. 
There was a vacant place by the camp-fire, and our 
thoughts went after the lonely Reformer who was rushing 
along through the darkness and whom another day would 
bring into the roar and bustle of Broadway, and the dust 
and heat of the early August days. In imagination we con- 
trasted his-disappointment and half-satisfied longings with 
the enthusiasm and ardor of Truthful James, who likely at 
this very hour was being whirled hitherward, full of eager- 
ness and dreams of the joyous vacation which had come to 
him at last. We knew that the thoughts of two busy lirains 
were centered here in the dancing light of the camp-fire, one 
full of regrets the other of anticipation. 
Suddenly there came the sound of a single pat on the can- 
vas behind us, in the darkness beyond and on the lake in 
front, an audible simultaneous drop everywhere, and then 
there was a silence, Then came another pat and another, 
then a sound, at first as though tiny light-footed squadrons 
were marching through the forest to rapid, countless beats, 
and then hurrying to the charge, and finally breaking from 
the coverts on all sides and the storm was fairly upon us, 
We retreated before it into the tent and there sat and listened 
to the far-away roar up the lake, which was every moment 
growing louder as the storm swept toward us, In a moment 
the walls of the tent bagged and the frail structure quivered 
as though about to be torn from its fastenings. After a few 
minutes the gale passed and the heavy fall of the rain on the 
roof drowned all other sounds. We rolled ourselves in the 
blankets and were soon lost in sleep while listening to the 
patter overhead, a music sweeter to the camper by far than 
all the melody ever born under the touch of a Strauss or a 
Beethoven, WAWAYANDA. 
Blatuyal History. 
NOTES OF A YEAR. 
8 I sit in my study the north wind rattles the windows; 
it is snowing sideways, and the mercury is hobnobbing 
with the bulb. By way of contrast, memory brings back 
some of the pleasant experiences of the last year with rod 
and gun along the streams and in the woods. 
A huge nest of the social wasp (Polistes fuscata) hangs on 
the other side of the room as the only remaining trophy of 
one of the many days that are recalled with pleasure. I 
allowed my boat to drift very cautiously under the willow 
where it was hanging over the water. A charge from a 
flying squadron of the possible occupants was not to be 
courted. A gentle shake of the tree, then a virgorous jerk 
or two was sufficient to prove that that colony of paper 
makers had moved out; perhaps it was because some hunter, 
who couldn’t hit anything else, had let fly at the balloon-like 
domicile, tearing open the top, thus letting in the rain; at 
any rate making a good window, through which I could 
look down into what had evidently once been a populous 
tenement. There were four combs within, one above the 
other, containing perhaps 200 empty cells. It was in the late 
autumn, and I was not sure but that a hibernating female 
might have taken up winter quarters somewhere in the inner 
apartments. 1 therefore, on the way home, kindly left the 
paper house with a friend for a few days, hanging it near 
the glowing grate. The family were all alive four or five 
days after, so I concluded nothing had thawed out in my 
Wwasp’s nest, nor would, and it was brought on home. 
I had several odd experiences with the yellow~jacket ( Vespa 
maculata) during the summer, One day, with rod and min- 
now bucket, I had toiled through the weeds and woods to a 
point where I had before caught the biggest black bass I had 
seen for many a day. Of course I was expecting to get 
several more like him. You always do expect something of 
the sort. But the bass did not seem hungry. They had 
evidently just dined, A few feet away there was a terrible 
fluttering and floundering in the grass, which 1 proceeded to 
investigate. A huge specimen of Opthoptera, I could not 
determine its exact species then, was struggling impotently 
against the attacks of an insignificant little yellow-jacket. 
It had possibly been in the tree above when attacked by its 
active little adversary, which was stinging it with might 
and main. The big insect was plainly getting faint. All at 
once it flashed across my mind that the little yellow-coat 
and I were out on about the same mission, both after game, 
he heing the more successful one of the two He had come 
upon his prey, and with his swift lance was giving him a 
hundred wounds, which must cventually prove fatal, I 
have never since forgiven myself for not capturing the 
hunter and his quarry. My failure to bag the bageer and 
the bagged was probably owing to the profound respect 
which I had just then for the fighting force of the yellow- 
coat. 
Yellow-jackots seem to feed indiscriminately upon fiesh or 
vegetable. A fish thrown out on the bank will soon attract 
a swarm of them. On several occasions a piscatorial friend 
and I had some difficulty m eating dinner so impertinent 
were these little fellows. Pie and meat and bread were yei- 
low with them, and they tumbled into the jelly cup by the 
dozen. One day the bass and croppy had taken a notion to 
bite just a little before dinner time, After catching a dozen 
or so, 5. said he must have something to eat. We threw 
down our rods, with the bait in the water for stragglers, 
Dinner was eaten with a lot of yellow-jackets as self-invited 
guests. At last 8. started back to his rod, with a substantial 
piece of bologna sausage in his hand; but a yellow-jacket 
had his eye upon that bologna asa shining prize. By dex- 
terous management, 8. managed to get an occasional bite 
and miss the yellow-jacket. Presently the floater on his line 
shot under the wafer as a bass gulped down the minnow on 
the hook. §. forgot his greedy little competitor, thrust the 
sausage pell mell into his mouth, and madea grab for his 
rod. But he suddenly changed his mind about the rod and 
dropped it, The yellow-jacket had followed the sausage 
into his mouth, and had then gone into ‘‘executive session,” 
5. now says that he doesn't like sausage with yellow-jacket 
sauce, it is ‘‘a little too hot.” The moral of this story is that 
the yellow-jacket is a very greedy feeder. 
_The space that may be occupied by these remembrances is 
already more than filled, and scores of curious things seen in 
the water and the woods during the old year have not been 
mentioned, They must be put aside for the present. 
Quinoy, Ill,, Jan,‘i, 1885, Ricw#arp Guar Hozzs, 
F 
THE VORTICELLA. 
(Ee very beautiful little animal lives, like the hydra, 
attached to the leaves and stems of water plants 1m 
slow-running streams and pools. It was called by the olden 
observers the bell-animaicule, from the marked resemblance 
of the shape of its body to a bell. A large number of them 
grouped together on a leaf or stem looks somewhat like a 
patch of white mould, and from this appearance it is gener- 
ally quite easy to find them. If a hit of the leaf to which 
they are attached is torn off and placed in water in a watch- 
glass, they may readily be examined with a hand magnify- 
ing glass or a low power of the microscope. 
The body of the animal resembles an inverted bell, or, 
perhaps a little more closely, a wine glass. 
What answers to the rim of the glass is con- 
siderably thickened and turned outward a 
little, and in one place is bent into the form 
of a mouth—very much like that of a beaker, 
The wine glass is also provided with a cover, 
which is capable of being opened and shut 
very much as if turning upona hinge. The 
coyer it nearly round, and so does not fit into 
the bent-out mouth of the rim, and in this 
way an aperture is left by which the inte- 
rior of the body is put in communication 
with the exterior. This aperture is the 
mouth of the animal. A rather short tube 
runs inward from the mouth and opens into 
the general body cavity. This tube, of 
course, answers to the gullet or cesophagus 
of the higher animals. The wine-glass 
shaped body thus far described is mounted 
upon « long, slender stalk, the foot of which 
is attached to the leaf or stem, The stalk 
is quite flexible, so that the animal is able to 
sway itself about upon it in the water. 
There are some other very interesting points of structure 
in the yorticella, but a high power of the microscope is 
needed in order to see them. In the first place, perhaps, it 
will be noticed that both the rim of the glass and the edge 
of the coyer are fringed with circles of cilia, which are 
almost constantly in a state of rapid vibration, These 
vibrations give rise to a current in the water which flows 
either into or from the body-cayity through the aperture of 
the mouth, the direction of the current being determined by 
the inward or outward movement of the cilia, It is in this 
way the animal geis its food. The small organisms upon 
which it lives are caught in the current and drawn through 
the mouth and gullet (the latter also being lined with cilia) 
into the interior of the body. By introducing some finely 
divided carmine or indigo into the water, not only the 
movements of these currents may be watched, but also the 
yery interesting process of digestion. As the particles of 
colored matter reach the free end of the gullet, which is 
here expanded a little into a kind of crop, they are rolled 
up into little balls or pellets, and these from time to time are 
discharged into the interior. They then circulate about in 
the body, moving down on one side and up on the other, If 
they are pellets of food-matter they continue this circulation 
until all the nutritious matter in them has been extracted, 
The indigestible remainder is extruded from the body 
through the mouth; but the passage it takes to the mouth is 
not quite the same as that by which it entered. Instead of 
passing back through the open end of the gullet, a second 
aperture is made in this organ at alittle distance from the 
first, and through this the particle passes. As soon as it has 
gone through the aperture closes and remains shut until 
again needed, 
Of course it often happens that bodies too large to be 
swallowed or not at all fit for food are caught in the current 
and carried to the mouth. In that case the animal has a 
very curious way of ridding itself of them. It ceases vibrat- 
ing its cilia, draws in its cover and rolls the rim inward, so 
that the whole body assumes a somewhat spherical shape, 
It then very suddenly and very rapidly throws its long 
stall into the form of a spiral and thus draws itself com- 
pletely away from the offending object. One can see the 
creature go through the same movements if the yessel in 
which it is contained is given aslight jar. After remaining 
in this contracted state for a few minutes the stalk slowly 
straightens, the cover raises, the rim becomes everted again, 
the cilia begin to vibrate, and the animal has regained its 
former appearance. 
In the upper part of the body of a yorticella there appears 
from time to time a rather large transparent space, When 
first seen it is very small, gradually it enlarges to its full 
size and then, after remaining visible for perhaps twenty or 
thirty seconds, it very suddenly disappears. This space is 
called the contractile vesicle. [t is believed to perform the 
function of a heart. Some observers haye thought they 
could make out channels radiating out from it, and it is be- 
lieved that when the vesicle contracts its contents are forced 
into these channels and thus a circulation of the contents of 
the body cavity kept up. Sometimes several of these vessels 
are present in the same animal, 
There is still one other structure present in the body of a 
yorticella, Itis quite large, somewhat elongated, and bent 
upon itself somewhat in the shape of a horseshoe. It is 
called the nucleus. Its function is probably connected with 
the reproduction of the animal. Nuclei are almost univer- 
sally present in the lower animals and plants; but in general, 
unlike that of the vorticella, they are round or ovalin shape. 
The vorticella has several ways of multiplying itself. One 
of these is by what is called fis- 
sion. In this case the animal 
splits itself into two like and 
equal parts; the fissure being 
made in the direction of its 
length. Hach of these parts en- 
larges and becomes exactly like 
the parent animal, The stalk, 
howeyer, splits only a little way 
down, and the two new ani- 
mals are therefore supported by 
asingle stem. Hach of these 
may again divide into two 
parts, and then in their turn 
again divide, and so a very 
large number of verticelle may become associated into a 
communily, all being supported by a single stalk. A zroun 
formed in this way is sometimes called a colony. In this 
multiplication by fission the nucleus seems to play an import- 
ant part. Previous to the division it becumes somewhat 
larger, and assumes anew position, the direction of its length 
becoming at right angles to the stalk; finally, when the divi- 
sion occurs, the nucleus separates into two parts, one going 
to each of the new avimals, 
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Another method by which the vorticella multiplies itself 
is that of gemmation or budding. This is a similar process 
to that which occursin the hydra, except that in the case of 
the yorticella the bud grows on the side of the body of the 
parent and not on the stalk. A new animal formed in this 
way does not long remain attached to the parent. Before 
loosening itself, curiously enough, it develops an extra fringe 
of cilia. This fringe vows at the base of the body, and so 
the creature is now provided with a circle of cilia at both 
ends of its body. By somewhat violent movements of these 
wreaths of cilia it loosens itself and swims away aftfree 
animal. It then undergoes another change and a very re- 
markable one. It loses the older wreath of cilia, and the 
rim from which they have been taken folds inward until the 
end of the body is entirely closed. It retains the cilia at the 
opposite end of the body, and by means of them continues 
toswim about. But after a time it attaches itself by what 
was originally its upper end—the end from which the cilia 
have been lost—to the side of the body of an ordinary fixed 
vorticella. A process now occurs which is perhaps more 
wonderful than any yet described. The two animals slowly 
and gradually unite by a kind of fusion into a single being. 
The creature thus formed is exactly like an ordinary vorti- 
cella, and when its turn comes to multiply will do so by the 
process of fission. 
The vorticella has still another way of multiplying itself, 
Sometimes an animal will ro]l its body up into a ball in the 
manner already described, and by a process of secretion 
surround itself with a hard case or cyst. It has now passed 
into what is called the ‘‘still” condition, there being little or 
no movement of either body or stalk. But after remaining 
in this state for a while, an activity begins to show itself in 
the interior of the body. Eight or ten dark spots appear and 
gradually increase in size until the whole interior is pretty 
well filled with them. The cyst now thins away on one side, 
and by and by bursts, allowing the bodies which haye been 
formed inside to escape. They swim about in the water, 
and are in fact a generation of young yorticelle, butas yet 
ina rudimentary stage of development. In a short time, 
however, they become full grown animals of the ordinary 
type, To this method of multiplication the term cell-division 
has been given. 
Vorticella have, therefore, four ways by which they may 
reproduce themselves, viz.: fission, gemmation, fusion and 
cell-division. 
There are several species of animals closely allied to the 
vorticella, One of these, the slentor, differs principally in 
being able to detach itself at will and swim about in a free 
state. Another, the cothurnia, has only a very short stalk, 
but is provided with a cup or envelope, into which the body 
can beretracted, The epistylis closely resembles the vorti- 
cella, but unlike the latter is not able to contract its stall. 
Some of these forms, curiously enough, are often found at- 
tached to the backs of water beetles and other aquatic ani- 
mals. It is not probable that this peculiar location is made 
by choice. More likely it is altogether a matter of chance 
to what objects they attach themselves; but moving bodies, 
as animals, are more favorable that stationary ones, since in 
this way a greater quantity of food is likely to be caught in 
the currents formed by the cilia. 
Union CoLLEece. 
THE CRANBERRY BEAR. 
Editor Forest and Stream: , 
“Eureka! here is ‘Nessmuk’s’ cranberry swamp bear,” 
thought J on entering onr city market house to-day. On a 
butche1’s table, surrounded by a group of interested specta- 
tors, lay a veritable red bear. It is only a few weeks since 
“Nessmuk” threatened to scour the wilds of Minnesota and 
half a dozen other States to secure this bear, and now it is 
shot in the northern part of Lycoming county, Pa., perhaps 
forty miles from ‘‘Nessmuk’s” home as the crow flies. Can- 
he have been on his way to deliver himself up to the old 
hunter to help him prove the scientific men wrong on the 
bear question? But to be serious, the bear was a beautiful 
animal with a pelt as red as that of any fox. There were 
no markings nor varying shades of color, but the same uni- 
form red all over its body, excepting from the eyes forward 
to nose, where the color was somewhat lighter. The nose 
proper was the “olor often seenin liver-colored dogs. 
Tbe bear was apparently about two years old (incisor 
teeth somewhat worn), was in moderate condition, and 
weighed ninety pounds, There was no perceptible differ- 
ence in its shape, length of limbs, ete., from ordinary black 
bears of the same size. If I may venture an opinion with- 
out any scientific knowledge on the subject, I would call it 
a case of albinoism (or rufus-ism) of the ordinary black bear. 
It was purchased by a gentleman of this city, who sent it 
away as a present 10 a friend. Whether it is to be mounted 
or not I have not learned; it would be a desirable acquisition 
for one of the first-class museums. 
A local paper says: ‘‘The red bear of which brief mention 
was made in yesterday’s Gazelie and Bulletin, was killed at 
Laurel Hill, this county, by Peter O’Brien. Mr. William 
Fry purchased it for Mr. Hiram A. Merriman, who shipped 
it last evening to a friend in Philadelphia, The animal is a 
curiosity, being of a bright red color, with head like that of 
a fox, and fur as soft as the wool of the sheep, At least one 
thousand persons visited the market house yesterday to see 
this bear, and old hunters said they never saw anything like 
it beiore,”’ BOBOLINK, 
WILLIAMSPORT, Pa. 
SOME CHRISTMAS BIRD NOTES. 
(Cee LY the hand of Nature had a elear page to 
/ write on the night before Christmas, and if he who has 
studied her ways went out early in the morning, the record 
of the night was made plain. 
Here a rabbit industriously searching for food, selects from 
a thousand the sapling whose root is nourishing and digs 
down to it, Then going on, he passes by hundreds of others, 
until again selecting the righf one, he scratches the snow 
from it and takes his moonlight meal, not a very hearty one 
for Christmas eve; but a little further on he finds an apple, 
frozen, to be sure, still to him a dessert unapproachable, 
Down in the woods a flock of quail had roosted. Rather 
chilly, one would think; but they had huddled close to- 
gether, and undoubtedly were warm, for they all started 
early to a little unfrozen pool and took their morning bath, 
each one showering his neighbor and wishing him a merry 
Christmas probably, for they were a right lively set of 
fellows, and po sooner was the morning toilet finished, than 
each one started on a hunt for his breakfast, as the lines in 
the snow show, till startled by some unknown sound, they 
all took wing together, and flew into the thicket beyond. 
Many other signs are left to the uninitiated; not simply 
