286 
april as 
®jit Naturalist, 
PRAIRIE HENS AND GRASSHOPPERS. 
Da. Elliot Canes, the well-known and dial in* 
guislied ornithologist, is writing a series of ar¬ 
ticles on this lavorito subject to the Chicago 
Held, and in ft late number be has something to 
say of “grouse and grasshoppers,” which should 
interest the residents of the infested regions of 
the West. Ho says: 
l observe, hi a late issue of the Chicago Field, 
that the question of the grasshopper-preying 
disposition of the prairie hen is re-opened, though 
it i« only through ignorance that any doubt on 
the subject can uriso. Some throe or four years 
ftgo I prepared and caused to he somewhat ex¬ 
tensively circulated in the Northwestern States, 
a brief reply to a question 1 found asked in one 
of the papers—“ What will destroy grasshop¬ 
pers-'”—stating in brief,—"Prairie hens will,” 
and giving some facts bearing on the case. I 
never meant that these birds were a complete 
ciue for the plague, but T endeavored to show 
what incalculable numbers of the pests the 
chickens destroyed, and to set their grasshopper- 
eating habits in the proper strong light. Prob¬ 
ably few persons, outside the ranks of practical 
ornithologists, are aware how extensively the so- 
called granivcrouB or seed-eating birds, such as 
sparrows, buntings and finches, feed upon in¬ 
sects at certain seasons: and the same is true of 
the graminivorous birds, like groUBe and par¬ 
tridges of all kinds. As for the particular insects 
now in question, namely tho grasshoppers, they 
furnish food to an immense array of quadrupeds 
and birds which inhabit the western prairies. 
The wolves, foxes, badgers, skunks and various 
species of sperm ophlles or “gophers," all eat 
them. Among birds, the cranes, ducks, hawks, 
owls, grouse, and a great variety of small spar¬ 
row-like birds ext them. To just what extent 
these furred and feathered natural enemies make 
an impression upon the devastating hosts, can¬ 
not of course, be known : for they have always 
been at work; but wo may logically infer, from 
known facts, that the destruction is incessant, 
decided and important to the last dogree. Since, 
also, wo do not know how delicately the contend¬ 
ing forces of nature may sometimes lie balanced 
in the perpetual " struggle for existence,” it 
would be safe to assert that the diminution of 
the numbers of prairie gronse by tho incessant 
persecution to which pleasure or profit subjects 
them, is one of tho principal causes of tho late 
perilous swarming of tho grasshoppers, but that 
there does exist to somo degree a causative con¬ 
nection between the two circumstances, there 
can be, I think, no doubt. 
With the prairie chicken proper, or pinnated 
grouse, Guptdonia eupido of the books, I have 
had very little experience. There is, however, 
iu its general habits, tastes, and proclivities, 
nothing materially different from what is the 
case with the sharp-tailed grouse, Fedwcoalee 
coluiiibianufi, and this is a bird which I have 
had ample opportunities of studying for Bcvcral 
years. I am inclined to place it, if not at the 
head, at least in tire very front raids, of all the. 
natural grasshopper-staying agencies. These 
birds yearly destroy millions of grasshoppers, 
and at certain seasons eat very little else. Such 
a seemingly extravagant statement is supported, 
nevertheless, by actual observation and personal 
experience. I lived in Dakota, in 1871, during 
the grasshopper invasion of that year, and was 
among tho sharp-tails continuously fx-om .Tune to 
October, killing a great many of them “out of 
season " for scientific purposes, and in season 
for sport and food. Iu the latter part of sum¬ 
mer, and in September, I invariably found grass¬ 
hoppers in the crops of those I examined; and 
almost invariably I found the craws crammed 
With the insects, almost to the exclusion of other 
articles of diet. As I took occasion to say in the 
“ Birds of the Northwest," “At this season their 
food appears to he chiefly grasshoppers. I have 
opened numbers to find their crops crammed 
with those insects, only varied with a few flowers, 
weed-tops, succulent leaves, and an occasional 
beetle or spider.” 
I don’t pretend to say, that tho business of 
staying the ravages of the grasshoppers may be 
safely and confidently left to the grouse, or to 
any other natural agency—the hoppers have 
waxed too many for that; but I do assert with¬ 
out fear of reasonable contradiction that they 
are tho natural means by which, in certain sec¬ 
tions of the country, the greatest numbers of the 
insects are destroyed. Ear aught I know to the 
contrary, the prairie chicken, the Cupidania , 
would mean the same thing. 
Among the many experiments which might be 
made with the hope of staying the ravages of 
thiH plague, the absolute, unqualified and long 
continued protection of the grouse might be 
tried. The denial of the sportsmen's pleasures, 
and the stoppage of one particular source of 
food supply, which such course would entail, 
would go for nothing iu comparison with the ad- 
p 
THE RURAL WEW-YORMER. 
vantages that might result. I do not mako the 
suggestion hastily, nor without duo considera¬ 
tion, backed by personal observation, and forti¬ 
fied by logical induction. 
We are always slow to acquire exact and full 
information respecting the food of the animals 
which surround us, notwithstanding that many 
or most of our quadrupeds, birds and insects 
hold toward us relations of the utmost economic 
importance, and tn spite of the unquestionable 
fact that all agricultural interests hinge upon the 
solution of the problems involved. A few years 
ago, the cock-of-tho-plains, ( Centrucercus uro- 
phasianus ) was supposed to food chiefly, if not 
exclusively, upon wormwood. I have killed 
them to find nothing but insects in their crops. 
Hawks, particularly of the genus Buko, pre¬ 
sumed to feed mainly upon small quadrupeds’ 
and birds, are immense consumers of grasshop¬ 
pers in the West, at certain seasons. 
One thing is certain, that if we are to uso birds 
in our war against the invading hosts, we must 
employ our own, and no imported ones. The 
expensive, uncertain, and difficult experiment of 
introducing any alleged “acridophagons ' species 
of tho old world, will never, I suppose, amount 
to shucks. Moreover, it is not to the technically 
considered “ insectivorous " birds that wo may 
turn our attention hopefully. Though many of 
tbeHO small specios feed habitually upon grass¬ 
hoppers in season, their collective efficiency in 
the work of destruction appeared to be, and I 
have no doubt is, comparatively insignificant. 
Wo may yet find some birds or sot of birds, pecu¬ 
liarly fitted for tho destruction of grasshoppers 
in tho egg; and, judging from some observations 
I made in Dakota, I should not be surprised if 
tho common meadow lark, Slurvella. proved to 
be one of them. But this is simply surmise. At 
present 1 know of no birds capable of rendering 
more efficient service than the grouse. This 
matter invites, and I think deserves, serious con¬ 
sideration. I should be glad to hear from others 
on the subject. 
-» ♦ » 
EXPERIMENTS WITH ANTS. 
Iff all ages moralists have delighted in refer¬ 
ring to the Ant as an exemplar of industry, fru¬ 
gality, and prudence among the lowor orders of 
creation, and have been ever ready to shame tho 
thriftlessness amt indolence of their own race, 
by dwelling complacently on on the opposite vir¬ 
tues shown by these busy little toilers. A natu¬ 
ral interest lias thus been aroused in their re¬ 
gard, and we are all more or less ploased by 
accurate details of their social and domestic 
economy, Hr John Lubbock, tho eminent En¬ 
glish Naturalist, has long been engaged in mak¬ 
ing observations and experiments upon ants, and 
has recently given an account of the results of 
his labors, of which we gladly give this brief 
summary : 
Each nost contains males, females, and work¬ 
ers. or imperfect females, and hs .■> more than one 
queen 5 and somo genera have soldiers, with 
large heads and powerful jaws. Tbo length of 
ant-life is unknown; but Hir John lias kept 
specimens since 1874. which are still perfectly 
vigorous. Some species keep domestic animals ; 
some are bold, others are timid and intelligent, 
others greedy, and others phlegmatic, fsome 
species, cowardly when alone, fight desperately iu 
numbers. The smell of auts is keen. They do 
not seem to use their eyes much, and they are 
deaf to sounds which we hear. Each species 
generally lives by itself; but sometimes individ¬ 
uals of another spocioB are domesticated. Some 
species cany off tho pnrpie of others, and make 
the young ones slaves, on whom they so much 
depend as to starve if not fed by their captives. 
Sir John divided a nest of the common black ant 
into two halves, and found that, after more than 
a year s separation, they recognised each other, 
while strangers from a different nest were driven 
out or killed. He also proved by experiments 
that ants help injured companions ; but the de¬ 
gree of compassion and feeling differs in them, as 
in mon. Of some auts, rendered insensible by 
chloroform (friends and strangers!, nearly all 
were taken and thrown away. Of others, made 
dead drunk, the friends were carried into the 
nest to recover, hut the strangers were ejected. 
Sir John considers that there is probably much 
division of labor in an ants’ nest; but the facts 
are not easy to ascertain. When ants first 
emerge from the pupa state, they devote them¬ 
selves to the care of the young and other duties 
within the nest, but do not come out foraging 
till they are older and more experienced. Sir 
John observed fliat, daring the winter months, 
special auts were evidently told off to fetch in 
supplies for the community. ’With regard to 
their intelligence, his experiments showed that 
some species possess much ingenuity, while 
others led to au opposite conclusion—proving 
that, however interesting their habits may ap¬ 
pear, the instincts of auts are strictly limited. 
Their modes of fighting are very various. Some 
ants transfix their foes with their terrible mandi¬ 
bles ; others trust to numbers, one party seizing 
an enemy while another dispatches it: one small 
species devours the dead left on the battle-field 
of the larger species: others jump on the backs 
of their larger foes, and cut off their heads from 
behind; while others roll themselves up into 
balls and never fight. Ants are useful to plants 
from the number of insects they destroy, while 
they nrc prevented from robbing them of their 
honey either by a chevauayde-frise of hairs point¬ 
ing downward, which the ants cannot descend; 
by sticky secretions; by tho flower being closed 
by lips, bars, or beards of hair: by the flower- 
stalks being slippery or bent over, or by pendu¬ 
lous flowers. In conclusion. Sir John observed 
that—even after the observations of Smith, Belt, 
Bates, Emory, Mayr, and, abovo all, of I’orel— 
few subjects of natural history offer a more wide 
or promising field of study than the habits of 
ants. Many diagrams and interesting apparatus 
illustrated the discourse. 
S -- -— 
jicirnlifir mill (Useful. 
INFLUENCE OF DIFFERENT COLORS UPON 
VEGETATION. 
M. Paul Bert has undertaken some new ox- 
periments upon the influence of different colors 
upon vegetation. These experiments, performed 
chiefly upon the sensitive plant, lead to the 
following results: Green light lulls plants; 
plants submitted to the influence of tho green 
ray die iu a short time. Under the influence of 
the red rays the sprays become elongated ; the 
leaflets arc raised so as to form a smaller anglo 
with the branch than in the normal state, tho 
plant appears to become etiolated and yet it 
remains alive. Under the influence of the bine 
rays tho process is reversed, the leaflets become 
perpendicular to the branch, while in whito light 
an intermediate position is maintained (i, e., the 
leaflets form with the branch an angle of 45 on 
one side and of 75 on the other). Jl. Bert ex¬ 
plains these facts as follows:- At the level of 
the point of attachment of the leaflet there is a 
motor enlargement, which increases or lossens 
in force according to the different kinds of rays. 
Under the influence of the red rays there is 
formed iu these enlargements a particular sub¬ 
stance, osmotic, and capable of att racting water. 
This substance generally disappears under the 
influence of the blue rays. If we place it under 
a glass shade, red on one side and green on the 
other, the plant turns its leaflets toward the 
green—that is to say, towards the color which 
kills it—and in fact it dies. 
■ * * »• ■ 
PRINTING BEFORE THE FLOOD. 
A oiiEAT deal has been said, says the London 
Echo, as tc the inventor of the art of printing, 
the period when the invention itself first saw the 
light, and tho locality where it was born. Two 
or three out of these points need not, however, 
excite-.discussion. It is a good while since the 
remark that “there is nothing new under the 
sun” was mado, hut anterior to that remote 
period—namely, some 4,000 years ago—the first 
printing machine existed in Babylon! if proof 
be required of this rather startling assertion it 
may easily be found, for it exists no further off 
than Trinity College, Cambridge. In that place 
there ia preserved a solid cylindrical figure about 
seven inches in length and three inches in diam¬ 
eter at each end. On the surface of this minia¬ 
ture cask-like cylinder minutely and finely 
wrought characters are eugravod, and these are 
arranged in vertical lines. It is, therefore, a 
striking example of the ingenuity of tho ancients, 
and shows their method of preserving and multi¬ 
plying national or family records. It is quite 
evident from the indented lettering of the Baby¬ 
lonian printing machine—for such it really is— 
that some moans of applying pressure to it was 
in use among the NLnevite “ typos,” this being 
so, the primitive appliance at Cambridge must 
be said to embody the identical principle of the 
newspaper machines of the present day. 
-- 
TEST PAPER FOR WINES. 
The Les J lornles says that trnu/rrine is the 
name of a test paper sold in Paris, for the pur¬ 
pose of detecting the fraudulent coloration of 
wines. With a genuine red wine the color pro¬ 
duced is a grayish-blue, which becomes lead- 
colored on drying. With magenta and other 
analine colors, it turns a carmine red : with arn- 
mouiaea] cochineal, a pale violet; with elderber¬ 
ries, the petals of roses, etc., a green ; with log¬ 
wood and Brazil wood, the color of dregs of 
wine ; with Pernambuco wood and phytolacca. a 
duty yellow; with extract of indigo, a deep 
blue. The manipulation required is very simple. 
A slip of tho paper is steeped in pure wine for 
about five seconds, briskly shaken in order to re¬ 
move the excess of liquid, and then placed on a 
sheet of white paper to serve as a standard. A 
second slip of test paper is then steeped iu the 
suspected wine in the same manner and laid be¬ 
side the former. It is asserted that 1 - 100 , 000 th 
of magenta is sufficient to give the paper a violet 
shade, while a larger quantity produces a carmine 
red. Tho inventors of tho test paper, MM. 
LainviUo and Boy, are also said to have dis¬ 
covered a method of removing magenta from 
wines without injuring their quality, a fact of 
somo importance, if it be true that several hun¬ 
dred thousand hectoliters of wine, sophisticated 
with magenta, are in the hands of merchants. 
•-- 
LIQUID GRAFTING WAX. 
A correspondent of the Practical Farmer 
gives tho following directions for making liquid 
grafting wax, which, being about the consistence 
of honey, may be readily applied with a brush 
for outdoor grafting, without the trouble of heat¬ 
ing. Jt is also excellent to cover cuts made in 
pruning“ Molt together 1 lb. of rosin and 1 
lb. of best tallow. Remove from stove and let 
cool until a scmn forms over it; then add 1 tea- 
spoonful spirits of turpentine ; replace on stove 
and add 7 oz. of a mixture of 2 parts strong al¬ 
cohol and 1 part water, stirring briskly, and tak¬ 
ing care that the alcohol does not itiflame, as it 
will if the mixture is too hot. Stir until the 
liquid is lust in the mixture, when it should be 
of the consistency of honey. Keep in a closed 
bottle and apply with a brush. If after a month 
or two it becomes hard, remelt, add a few drops 
more of the turpentine, and more of the alcohol 
and water. A few days after it ia applied it be¬ 
comes bard, and will remain unchanged, except 
that it grows harder, for an indefinite time. 
■-- 
NOTES. 
Plastic Stone .—Five parts of sifted whiting 
mixed with a solution of one part glue, together 
with a little Venice turpentine to obviate tho 
brittleness, makes a good plastic material, which 
may be kneaded into figures or any desired 
shape. It should he kept warm while being 
worked. It becomes as hard as stone when dry. 
Another Insecticide .—At a recent meeting of 
the Royal Horticultural Society attention was 
called to a now insecticide, which consists of 
camphor dissolved iu methylated spirits to satura¬ 
tion, and mixed with softsoap to the consistence 
of cream. When diluted so as to be fit for uso 
with a syringe, this has been found an efficacious 
substitute for fumigation in the case of mealy 
bug, scale, red spider, etc. 
Clothes Moths .—This is the period when moths 
begin to fly, and those who have not packed 
away winter garments and furs should lose no 
time in doing so. Beat the articles thoroughly, 
and expose them to bright sunlight and air for 
several hours. Seal them up in tight paper 
cases, or put them away iu close truuks, with 
plenty of gum camphor, pepper, tobacco, chips 
of Russia leather, or cedar dust. 
Chroinatized Gelatine as a Cement. —Chroma- 
tized gelatine, obtained by the addition of one 
part bichromate of potass to five parts of a solu¬ 
tion (5 or 10 per cent.) of gelatine, forms a most 
excellent cement for glass. The surfaces to be 
united, after being smeared with the cement, 
are placed upon each other and exposed to the 
sun. After a few hours the adhesion is perfect 
and almost invisible, and boiling water itself 
has no action upon the cement. 
Domestic €.conomii. 
‘-O 
AMERICAN BEEF IN ENGLAND. 
Our English cousinH have never been any too 
ready to praise things of American production, 
consequently we are a little surprised that they 
should come out so strongly, of late, iu favor of 
our beef. That the butchers who kept it on sale 
should speak well of it, vvaH only nacural • but 
when the consumers and cooks added their 
mites, then we began to think an honest expres¬ 
sion upon its merits had come. 
In a late number of the Agricultural Gazette, a 
housekeeper gives her experience with American 
beef, which, upon tho whole, is quite flattering, 
and will, doubtless, encourage others to indulge 
in the delicacy. She says: 
“ We have had many opinions, interested and 
disinterested, on the • Bos Americanus;’ but no 
one who has really cooked, and eaten, and fed a 
family from its • starred and striped sides ’ has 
come forward to say, iu a practical way, how the 
experiment passed off. On the strength of hav¬ 
ing had it twice at table, once in the form of a 
steak and once as a roast, and thinking that such 
information might be acceptable to some of your 
readers, 1 will try and put into shape the verdict 
concerning it. 
“ For tho sake of candor and impartiality, I 
would have preferred a greater experience be¬ 
fore committing myself to paper; but that would 
result in longer waiting, and perhaps there may 
be some already—as I was—wondering if they 
might prudently invest in a joint. To such I 
would unhesitatingly say, Do. If you are as 
□ 
