Aug. 1?, igot.] 
North American Mammals. 
Never has so much work been done in biologj'' as at the 
pi'esent time. Never before has there been so much study 
of the life of the globe which we inhabit, such a gathering 
of the facts concerning it. While to the layman much of 
the work done may seem to have no direct bearing on the 
well-being of humanity at large — to be "of no use" hi 
other words — the practical value of other investigations is 
sufficiently obvious, even to the least informed person. 
An important and useful work has just appeared in the 
Zoological Series of the Field Columbian Museum. It 
consists of a large vohmie of nearly 500 pages, entitled 
"A Synopsis of the Mammals of North America and Ad- 
jacent Seas," by Daniel Giraud Elliot. F. R. S. E. 
This is intended to be a complete list of North Amer- 
ican mammals to date, and is thus one of the most useful 
v/orks that could have been presented to the working . 
mammalogist. to him who is interested in natural history 
and desires to keep up with the times, or merely to the 
man of general culture who desires a volume to which 
he can refer for general information as to our mammals. 
Not a few eminent workers in science believe that one 
result of the great mass of work now being done is the 
hasty and ill-considered multiplication of new species ; 
the giving of distinctive rank to too many forms: the 
naming of species, sub-species and geographical races on 
dilTerences which to some appear to be merehr those 
variations likely to occur between individuals within a 
group. Such critics believe that among mammals, birds 
and reptiles, new species are continually being described 
which ought not to be described, because they are not 
valid — i. e., permanent as they see it — divisions of the 
group. This, of course, brings us back only to the old and 
vexed question, what is a species? the answer to which 
is likely to be long waited for. 
Dr. Elliot is one of those naturalists who deprecates 
the tendency to species making and in his preface he ob- 
jects to the apparent readiness of some mammalogists to 
niagnify slight differences, and to base distinction on 
variations which can be recognized only when the speci- 
mens in question are compared with the nearest allied 
forms, and he expresses the belief that not a few of the 
names in his book will ultimately serve only to swell lists 
of synonyms. 
Over this matter we may leave the scientific men to 
worry, secure in the faith that some student . of the 
future will unravel the knots that have puzzled those of to- 
day, and will relegates all the different described fonns to 
their proper systematic position. Meantime, we may 
be very grateful to Dr. Elliot, who has done an immense 
amount of work in order to include in his_ synopsis all 
the described forms. It undoubtedly represents very 
closely the list of described North American mammals 
up to the close of the year 1900. j^et it must be remem- 
bered that a volume of this character is hardly put on the 
press before it is ou\ of date, and since the beginning of 
the current year a number of new species of mammals 
have been described — among them several of especial in- 
terest to the big-game hunters. . 
The order followed by Dr. Elliot is from the lowest to 
highest, beginning with the marsupials and passing up 
through the edentates, sirenians — or sea cows^wdiales, 
ungulates — all grass-eating big game — the rodents — -squir- 
rels, rats, mice, porcupines, hares and so forth — car- 
nivores — cats, wolves, bears and weasels — the seal group, 
the insectivores — shrews and moles — and the bats. There 
are more than 600 species and 115 genera listed, besides a 
great number of subspecies and geographical races. 
The volume i,s very fully illustrated by nearly 100 photo- 
graphs of skulls and teeth of very nearly every genus and 
subgenus of North American mammals. These illustra- 
tions add greatly to the volume's usefulness to the student, 
and make it very desirable to big-game hunters. Of these 
very effective photographs, many are larger than a full 
page, and form a folded plate. In an appendix are in- 
cluded a number of species which were described after 
the volume went to press and added later, among them 
new foxes from Alaska, described by Dr. Merriam. 
It is not easy for the casual reader to comprehend the 
vast amount of labor involved in the preparation of a 
volume such as this — the infinity of books to be turned 
over, the vast number of references to l>e hunted itp, the 
necessity for constant vigilance, both in the preparation 
of the manuscript and in the reading of the proofs. That 
some mistakes shall occur in a work of this nature is in- 
evitable, but in Dr. Elliot's volume they appear to be 
few, and most of them are corrected in an errata table. 
Even to the uninformed layman this volume is extreme- 
ly interesting, for it gives, as already said, a Hst of all 
the North American mammals that have been described, 
and which are generally considered as entitled to some 
kind of recognition. As here understood. North Amer- 
ica extends from the North Pole to the boundary which 
separates the United States and Mexico, and, of course, in- 
cludes the seas which wash these slwres. 
A Tfagfedy in Sparrow Life. 
Mr. a. D. Wydeveld, of 592 Palisade avenue. Jersey 
City, N. J., tells us of witnessing a very curious incident 
of bird life. An Engli,sh sparrow, which was flying with 
some twine into a crevice in a stone building, became 
entangled in the twine and was hanged. The mate of the 
.sparrow, the female, coming soon after, discovered the 
plight of the bird and sought to release it from the toils of 
the string by biting through the string above the sus- 
pended bird. Failing to do this, it flew away in great per- 
turbation, then immediately returned, perched on a wire 
and acted as if it were endeavoring to sharpen its bill on 
the wire. It then went to the string and again endeavored 
to cut it through and release the hanged bird. Mr. Wyde- 
veld, who is an artist of great skill, and known to rnany 
as a delineator of fishes, was so impressed by the incident 
that he has transferred it to canvas, on which he has 
pictured the dead bird and its mate in the several stages of 
its endeavor to rescue by cutting the string. The fidelity 
of the painting is much admired by the friends of Mr. 
Wydeveld, who, with him, witnessed' the incident. 
An Outing in Acadia.— VIL 
BY EDWARD A. SAMUELS. 
SuND.w was passed rather quietly, although the Doctor 
and I took a short ramble in the forenoon. On climbing 
the hill near the house a good view of the settlement and 
the surrounding country was obtained. For many miles 
in all directions stretches of forest were to be seen, dotted 
here and there with clearings and farm buildings, and 
ending in blue lines of hills and mountains in the dim 
distance. 
"What a grand location for a cottage !" I exclaimed, as 
we reached the summit. "One would never tire of such a 
glorious panorama as that which lies around us. I'm 
afraid, _ though, it would be pretty bleak and cold in 
winter." 
"Yes; one would need pretty thick walls to his house in 
such an exposed-position as this. Imagine the wind b]ow- 
ing a gale. Avith the thermometer showing twenty degrees 
below zero, a not uncommon temperature here. It is 
glorious air, though." 
We paused for a few minutes to enjoy the beautiful 
view and watch the cloud effects as their shadows fell 
upon hills and pastures, forests and cultivated fields. As 
we stood on the greensward we tioticed a great many 
gossamer webs and presently we saw a number of spiders 
flying, or rather drifting, through the air, impelled by the 
light breeze that was blowing from the south. 
A dozen passed us in a very short space of time, and 
the air seemed to glLsten with the fragile filaments which 
supported them. 
"There seems to be a migration of spiders," said the 
Doctor, watching the little aeronauts as they drifted b\'. 
"I never saw so many on the move at one time; probably 
there Avill be a change of weather soon, for they are very 
sensitive little barometers, and they ntay desire to find 
new quarters before the storm breaks." 
"But where do they all come from. Doctor?" I inquired. 
■'They seem almost numberless." 
"Oh ! they are quite abundant in all these stretches of 
sward and grain fields ; there are. no doubt, many thou- 
sands on every square rod of land around us : they are 
greater wanderers than most people are aware of, and they 
often travel distances that we would hardlj' suspect them 
of covering." 
The spiders were all of one species — the connnon field 
spider — and as far as we could see they were of almost 
uniform size, and were probably females, for they aver- 
aged larger than the ordinary males that we had met 
with. 
Although spiders are to the casual observer unattrac- 
tive and sometimes even repulsive in a high degree, they 
are to the naturalist among the most interesting of crea- 
tures. The phenomenon that we witnessed of the moving 
hordes was an example of the instinct which at certain 
seasons of the year impels them to travel sometimes quite 
considerable distances in a sort of m.igration or rather 
change of localit}'. 
The method by which they perform their flight is simple, 
but most efficacious. The spider selects a bright day. one 
that is calm or with but a slight breeze in motion, and 
climbing to the top of a bush or a tall weed or grain stalk 
or fence post, it begins to emit its silky filament, Avhich 
is carried along lightly b}' the breeze. 
Sometimes as much as 200 yards of the delicate thread 
are needed to support the little aeronatit in safety. When 
it ascertains that there is enough of the cable out to buoy 
it. it drops from its resting place, and hanging to the 
filament, is borne oft' hy the wind, perhaps for many miles. 
If it finds itself coming down near a body of water, it 
throws out more of the silky thread, and thus obtains a 
more upward movement and passes by the dangerous 
element ; but if it finds that it is ascending too high, it 
draws in the cable and descends by lessening the buoyancy 
■ of the filament. 
That the spider has the power of projecting its silky 
thread in almost any direction, provided the air is still, 
has been proved by a nttmber of good observers. 
Mr. H. M. J. Underbill, an English naturalist, who 
has devoted much time to studying the habits of the 
spider, states that one calm afternoon he was amusing 
himself by keeping a spider on a short piece of stick, by 
just winding up her thread as fast as she let herself down. 
The thread when broken and left hanging showed no ten- 
dency to blow out. But the spider soon got tired of being 
teased, and after having several times, by breaking the 
thread, dropped herself to the ground, only to be picked 
up aga'n, she tried a new expedient. Still hanging by 
her thread, she shot out several others, each composed 
of many detached threads, which blew about at once, and 
one of them catching in a twig near by. she seized it, cut 
off the other filament and escaped. 
Another scientist in corroboration of this fact states that 
all spiders are able to eject and attach lines of web just 
where they wish. He obtained a cocoon half full of 
house .spiders, one end of the soft, silken ball appearing 
quite black with the number of busy spiders huddled to- 
gether, while the other half was filled with the empty 
shells of the eggs from which they had lately emerged. 
With the point of a needle he made an aperture in the 
cocoon, and let a number of the little creatures free, be- 
ing anxious to see whether they woifld exercise their 
web-spinning power soon after their entrance upon life. 
It so happened that he allowed them to escape on to a 
book which was laid across the end of a marble mantel- 
piece. The spiders immediately began to run about, and 
several let themselves down by lines a few iiiches from 
where the edge of the book projected beyond the mantel- 
piece, as if to reconnoiter, but quickly returned again. 
Suddenlj' he perceived that from one of the small crea- 
tttres. after being for a time motionless, a line of web- of 
exquisite fineness had been put up. at abqut an angle of 45 
degrees, to the edge of a terra-cotta vase Avhich stood on 
the other side of the book, and was about ten inches high. 
The line was taut and firmly fixed, although so fine. No 
portion of it hung over the edges of the base, and the 
web had exactly impinged on and adhered to the outer 
angle of the rim. The young spider was about a line in 
length, and the web it had sent up was rather more than 
ten inches in length, therefore it was evident that these 
new-born creatures, before being nourished by food, pos- 
sess the power of ejecting a line one hundred times 
their own length, and are able to attach it to exactly the 
spot they desire, while the matter ejected preserves its 
stickiness sufiiciently to adhere to the spot after its pas- 
sage through the air. The spider next ran up the line, 
carrying with it a second hne, attached to the edge of 
the ixiok. Other spiders followed its example, and soon 
a lovely band of innumerable silvery threads were formed 
between the book and the outer angle of the rim of the 
vase, and extending about an inch and a half round its 
circumference, the little creatures traveling up and down 
with incredible celerity and 'industry until it was formed. 
The writer, in comnienting on this wonderful perform- 
ance, says: "I had no difficulty in understanding the fol- 
lowing atitumn how a large Epeira diadcma had been 
able to send out a line two and a half inches in length from 
a trellis to exactly the corner of a projecting balcony, and 
another from that corner back to the trellis, so as to form 
an angle within which his splendid, large, wheel-shaped 
web was formed." 
The question is often a.sked, "How does the .spider make 
its web? Does it travel back and forth to all the various 
points to Avhich it. is attached, or has it the faculty of 
projecting the filament of the frame and fastening it se- 
Gardeii Spider and Web. 
curely without going to and fro to all the places of at- 
tachment?" This is a difficult question to answer, because 
the work is done in the evening or the early morning at a 
time when we may have but little chance of witness- 
ing it. 
The web of the Epeira or garden spider is almost per- 
fectly geometrical in shape, and from this fact the species 
is often called the geometrical spider. That the rays of 
which it is composed are not all attached to their points of 
contact by the direct touch of the spider is proven by the 
fact that the web is sometimes built over a running brook 
which the creature could not possibly cross. 
.A.n observer notes this fact as follows: 
"Two or three years ago I was walking by the side of a 
small mill stream, when my attention was arrested by a 
very large spider's web stretching across the stream from 
bank to bank, and attached to the stems of grass and other 
herbage. The stream was not less than three feet in 
widthT and the web itself would not be less than four by 
. six feet in length. The web itself was constructed on 
Spider's Foot. 
the mathematical principle, and resembled a cart wheel in 
general outline, a number of diverging spokes proceedmg 
from a central point or nave, and these spokes were united 
bv concentric circles of threads about a quarter of an nich 
apart, over the whole structure. The domicde of the 
sp'der was exactly in the center of the web and over the 
n^.iddle of the stream, and. when I saw it, the spider 
was hanging by a thread about a foot from the runnmg 
stream. The spider itself was about the size of a dried 
marrow-fat pea of the same color. Now this remarkable 
i'glit excited mv wonder and curiosity to comprehend how 
an animal that neither flies, leaps, nor swims, could accom- 
plish such a feat, and I am still in the dark as to its mode 
of operation in making its web." 
The building of the web is well described by Mr. J. H. 
Emerton in the American Naturalist, Vol. II. In this 
article he says : 
"The feet of spiders are wonderfully adapted for walk- 
ino- on the web. Each foot is furnished with three claws, 
Claws of Spider. 
the middle one of which is bent over at the end. forming 
a long finger for clinging to the web, or for guiding the 
thread in"' spinning. The outer claws are curved and 
toothed like a comb. Opposite the claws are several stiff 
hairs, which are toothed like the claws, and serve as a 
thumb for the latter to shut against. 
"When a spider wishes to build a web she usually 
selects a corner, so that the structure may be attached 
on several sides. She then runs a few threads along the 
objects to which the web is fastened, to facilitate her pas- 
sage from point to point. The web is commenced by a 
line or two across the point where the center is to be, 
