NATURAL HISTORY NOTES 193 
stems so fasciated. and twisted were fashionable for a season 
as parasol-handles. 
In the various attempts to explain the ascent of the sap in 
trees, we reached a few years back a “ spiral-staircase theory.” 
which seemed specious and for a short time held its own. 
Tracheids, or wood-cells, it was found, had transverse parti- 
tions at the same height along a radius of the stem, but slightly 
higher or lower than those of radial rows of tracheids on either 
side of them. Between these rows of tracheids were the proto- 
plasm-filled cells of the pith-rays, and the theory supposed these 
cells by a vital process to take up the liquid contents of one row 
of tracheids, parting with them to another row at a higher level. 
There are, alas, several insuperable objections to this ingenious 
supposition, which might have helped us to understand a spiral 
twist in a woody stem such as that here illustrated. 
The spiral splitting of the bark in the Spanish Chestnut is 
well known ; but the external appearance of this Dulwich Cedar 
suggests a torsion far deeper-seated, and recalls some abnor- 
malities of other trees, such as Elms, which are perpetuated 
by grafting, and which generally bear some such appropriate 
varietal name as tortuosa. It is hardly necessary to allude here 
to the externally induced spiral contortion in Hazel or other 
woody stems round which Honeysuckle or other tough stems 
have entwined themselves. 
NATURAL HISTORY NOTES. 
24. Is Nature Cruel ? — Many are distressed by the way in which a cat 
“ plays ” with a mouse before killing it. That the mouse does not suffer so much 
as might be expected is proved by certain facts told me by a friend a short time 
ago. Her cat after catching a mouse and “ playing ” with it for some time, left 
it to go and eat some meat in a plate on the floor. To my friend’s surprise, the 
mouse followed, in spite of a broken leg, and fed for a while out of the same dish, 
the cat occasionally pushing the mouse aside when it came too close. When 
both had finished the cat eat up its companion, who evidently feared death as 
little as the condemned murderers who, we are often told, “ate a hearty breakfast 
on the morning of their execution.” 
Christ hurst, Sutton , Surrey. W. G. KlLPACK. 
25 . — I never read opinions like those put forward by Mr. Smallman (p. 152) 
without a feeling of pain. If the powers of sensation in the lower animals are as 
feeble, or non-existent, as he supposes, it is not worth taking the trouble to reprove 
a boy who pulls the wings off flies, or puts a pin in every butterfly he catches, 
and lets it die a lingering death. 
My article did not state that the lower forms of life are as highly sensitive as 
man. That they are more sensitive than Mr. Smallman thinks I trust most 
true lovers of Nature will readily allow. He says it “ would not be very surpris- 
ing if the invertebrata did not have the power of feeling developed,” and ques- 
tions “ if they do at all” feel paint! and tells us as a reason that “mutilated 
insects have been kept alive for several hours or even days, they all the time 
feeding well.” I have known numbers of human beings who also have been 
“mutilated,” having lost their eyes, noses, arms, or legs, &c., and who have 
lived for years, and fed uncommonly well. Indeed, had they not been good 
feeders many would not have survived their mutilations. Are we to conclude 
that people do not feel losing a limb because they are able to feed well ? 
