Natural Sci ence N ews. 



VOL. I ALBION, N. Y., MARCH 2, 1895. No. 5 



Natural Science News. 



A Weekly Journal Devoted to 

 Natural History. 



FRANK H. LATTIN, Editor and Publisher, 

 ALBION, N. Y. 



Correspondence and Items of interest to the 

 student of any of the various brandies of the 

 Natural Sciences solicited from all. 



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In Nature's Haunt. 



Written for the natural science news. 



I love to wander in the shade, 

 And revel 'mid some sylvan scene, 

 Where Nature wears a face serene, 



And Flora's gifts are all arrayed. 



Where twining tendril interweaves, 

 Where tiny bud unfolds its wings, 

 Where woodland's sweetest songster 

 sings 



On stately bough 'neath verdant leaves. 



Where gentle breezes linger 'round, 

 And waft sweet odors from the 

 flowers; 



Where noontide sun peeps through 

 the bowers, 

 And kisses earth with beauty crowned. 



I love to sit beside the brook, 

 And watch its crystal waters leap 

 O'er mossy stone and rugged steep, 



From sunny pool to shady nook. 



I love to stroll along the brink 

 And gather pretty stones and shells, 

 Or pluck the dainty golden bells, 



Whose rootlets from the fountains 

 drink. 



My very heart is sweetly thrilled 

 With solitary happiness, 

 To think that I can have access 



To Nature's haunts with beauty tilled. 



Yes, Nature holds within her bounds 

 So many things that charm the soul, 

 No wonder that the Indian's goal 



Was in the happy hunting grounds. 



Though others look beyond the skies 

 For future happiness and bliss, 

 I think I am content with this, — 



Sweet Nature's radiant Paradise. 



George J. P»emsburg. 



The Ohio State University lias 

 added to its museum one of the fi- 

 nest skeletons of a mastodon in 

 existence. 



A Pioneer Naturalist. 



Charles Waterton may with 

 propriety be called the Pioneer Na- 

 turalist of America, for at a time 

 when the study of natural history 

 was not popular and fashionable, 

 as it is now, he spent ten years 

 wandering among the forests of 

 South America to learn all he could 

 of the habits of birds and beasts. 

 Multitudes of learned and enthus- 

 iastic students have since followed 

 in his footsteps and added much 

 to our knowledge of nature, but 

 none have surpassed him in devo- 

 tion to science, keen appreciation 

 of the beauties to be found in com- 

 mon things, or in the powers of 

 description. 



Many of his discoveries that 

 were strange and wonderful then 

 are matters of common knowledge 

 now, and questions that were in 

 doubt and uncertainty in his time 

 are now fully settled. You can 

 find books on natural history that 

 will give you fuller information 

 than his "Wanderings,'' or his 

 '•Essays" contain, but his charm- 

 ing descriptions of natural scenery 

 and his fascinating portrayal of the 

 habits of all the living things that 

 crossed his path are unequalled. 

 More than that you find in him the 

 great master, the original of whom 

 most of our later essayists are 

 copyists and imitators. 



Waterton, when a boy, attended 

 a school taught by a Catholic 

 priest, and completed his educa- 

 tion at a Jesuit college, where he 

 showed great talents for compos- 

 ing Latin verses and developed a 

 fondness for Latin authors, espec- 

 ially Virgil, which never forsook 

 him. His writings abound in Lat- 

 in quotations which are very ap- 

 propriate but at the same time are 

 very trying to the reader who is 

 not a classical scholar. These 

 quotations were not the outgrowth 

 of pedantry or a wish to display 

 his learning, for he had read the 

 classics so much that they formed 

 a large part of his education and of 

 his thoughts and his allusions to 

 them were natural and unaffected. 



He had travelled upon the Eur- 

 opean continent and had witnessed 

 the frightful devastations of the 

 pestilence and earthquake at Mala- 

 ga in Spain, and had returned to 

 England when, in 1804, an oppor- 

 tunity was found for him to visit 

 Demerara, in South America, 



where one of his uncles had es- 

 tates. There he was so impressed 

 with the grandeur and beauty of 

 the primeval forests that he began 

 an extended investigation of their 

 wonders. The solitudes of the 

 woods had great charms for him, 

 and he delighted to ramble in a 

 country where, as the lines he often 

 quoted say, 



"You are as free as when God first 



made man, 

 Ere the vile laws of servitude began, 

 And wild in woods the noble savage 

 ran." 



He says that the dangers of trav- 

 elling through a wild and almost 

 unexplored country are greatly ex- 

 aggerated and mostly exist in the 

 fancies of imaginative people. 



The young man who dines" late, 

 drinks excessively and then goes 

 reeling to the theater "is exposed 

 to more certain ruin, sickness and 

 decay than he who wanders a 

 whole year in the wilds of Deme- 

 rara." This is, no doubt true, yet 

 it must not be supposed that the 

 naturalist shunned danger and had 

 no exciting adventures, for he was 

 absolutely fearless and dared every- 

 thing in the pursuit of knowledge. 



On one occasion he wished to 

 obtain a cayman, or South Ameri- 

 can alligator, for dissection, with 

 the skin whole and the scales unin- 

 jured. Having procured of an In- 

 diana curious wooden hook having 

 four barbs, he at length succeeded 

 in hooking an alligator ten and a 

 half feet long. 



His negro and Indian assistants 

 at first refused to aid him in draw- 

 ing out the creature, and insisted 

 on killing the "game" at once, but 

 at length, by entreaties and threats 

 he induced them to haul in the 

 rope, while he stood at the water's 

 edge between them and danger. 

 Playing the reptile as an angler 

 "plays" with a big fish, they final- 

 ly landed him. Waterton had 

 stood prepared to thrust the mast 

 of a boat down the alligator's 

 throat, but when it was drawn 

 ashore he saw* an opportunity to 

 do better still and leaped astride 

 of it. Seizing the animal's fore 

 legs he drew them forcibly upon 

 its back and clung on to them as 

 to a bridle. Now the alligator, as 

 a rule, is not a very docile saddle 

 horse, and this one proved no ex- 

 ception, but writhed, twisted, 

 plunged and lashed about furiously 

 with its terrible tail. Still the na- 



