EXTRACTS—NATURAL HISTORY. 
41 
time. The process of preserving is this:—lie causes new milk to be evaporated 
over a slow fire, until it is reduced to a powder. This powder is then put into a 
bottle which is hermetically sealed. When the milk is wanted for use, it is only 
to dissolve some of the powder in a seasonable quantity of water, and the mix¬ 
ture so dissolved will have all the qualities as well as the taste of milk.— Ibid. 
Otaiieitean Mode of preparing Arrow Root. —When a sufficient quan¬ 
tity of the roots of the Tacca pinnatifida are collected, they are taken to a 
running stream, or to the sea-beech and washed; the outer skin is carefully 
scraped off at the same time with a shell; and those who are particular in the 
preparation scrape out even the eyes. The root is then reduced to a pulp, by 
rubbing it up and down a kind of rasp, made after the following manner: a 
A piece of board, about three inches wide, and twelve feet long, is procured, 
upon which some coarse twine, made of the fibres of the cocoa nut husk, is 
tightly and regularly wound, and which affords an admirable substitute for a 
coarse rasp. The pulp, when prepared, is washed first with salt or sea water, 
through a seive, made of the fibrous web which protects the young frond of the 
cocoa-nut palm; and the starch, or arrow-root, being carried through with the 
water, is received into a wooden trough, made like the small canoes used by the 
natives. The starch is allowed to settle for a few days ; the water is then strained, 
or more properly, poured off, and the sediment re-washed with fresh water. This 
washing is repeated three times with spring water, after which the deposit is 
made into balls of seven or eight inches diameter, and in this style dyed in the 
sun for twelve or twenty-four hours. The balls are then broken, and the pow¬ 
der spread for some days in the sun to dry, after which it is carefully wrapped in 
tapa (the native cloth) and put into baskets, and hung up in the houses.— A. 
Matthews , Lima, Gard. Mar/. 
NATURAL HISTORY. 
Migrations of the Chaffinch. —When the summer birds of passage arc 
departed, or departing, our winter visitants are beginning to flock in from the 
north. A very singular peculiarity in these migrations was first discovered by 
Linnaeus in the Chaffinch ( Fringilla Spiza Ren.) of Sweden, the males migra¬ 
ting while the females remain stationary, It has been said that this occurs 
partially even in Britain with respect to the same bird. In the case of other 
migratory birds, it is remarkable that the males generally arrive first, preceeding 
the females by several days, a circumstance which the bird-catchers know' how to 
take advantage of. The migrations of the different sexes appear to be by no 
means peculiar to the Chaffinch. Amongst other birds, w'hose sexes separate 
during winter, Selby mentions the Snow-Fleck, ( Emberiza nivalis) and there can 
be little doubt, that it is chiefly, if not entirely, the cock red-breast, which win¬ 
ters near our houses, the hens either retiring from the Island, or haunting more 
wild or solitary localities.— Times Tel. Notes of a Nat. 
