THE NATURALISTS’ COMPANION. 
55 
A young naturalist without a nat¬ 
ural liistory paper is far behind the 
times. Take our paper, it’s the best. 
If you wish to obtain some tine 
specimens for your collections give 
our advertisers a trial order. 
A"e editor is thinking seriously of 
organizing an Agassiz Association 
chapter at this place. 
The pi\)spectns of the Standard 
Directory for 1886 is before us, and 
promises to be a grand success. 
We had the first snow storm of 
the season at this place at 11:30 a. M., 
Oct. 6. Last year the hrst snow 
occurred at 10 o’clock a.m., Oct.23. 
Lyman II. Low, 838 Broadway, 
New A^ork, has our thanks for a copy 
of his catalogue of U. S. and Amer¬ 
ican Colonial Coins. The catalogue 
contains 41 pages and can be pro¬ 
cured from bin] tor 15 cents. 
In an address before the Munich 
geographical society,Dr. Oscar Lenz 
has maintained that the dryness of 
the western Sahara is quite recent, 
and that it was caused by the felling 
of forests on the Ahaggar mountain 
range. 
A white spot on the forehead of a 
horse generally goes with white feet. 
Hairless dogs are deficient in teeth. 
Long wings usually accompany long 
tail feathers. White cats with blue 
eyes are generally deaf. A sheep 
with numerous horns is likely to 
have long, coarse wool. 
There are swans on the river 
Thames, in England, that are known 
to he 150 years old. For five cen¬ 
turies the Vintner’s company there 
has kept a record of certain swans, 
an the ages of the specimens of this 
long-lived species of water-fowl are 
known to a day. 
The astronomer royal for Scotland 
lately read a paper from Professor 
Crum Brown, on bright clouds on 
a dark nigh sky. He, Prof. Smyth 
said, had witnessed this strange phe¬ 
nomenon on April 18, 1862, and 
April 30, 1883. The air was for a 
few hours dry from a cause not very 
clear. 
Ye editor,accom panied by a friend, 
went duck hunting to the lake a 
short time ago. Imagine his dis¬ 
appointment when upon arriving 
there he found that the shells he 
had loaded for his gun were all a 
size too large, and plenty of duck in 
sight. It is just as well, though, for 
if he could have used the shells there 
probably wouldn’t have been a duck 
within fifty miles. 
Would it not he a good plan for 
our young naturalists to arrange 
their collecting seasons something 
like this: In the spring collect botan¬ 
ical specimens and skins of birds 
and animals; in the summer, insects, 
eggs, nests and reptiles; in the fall, 
skeletons, larve, minerals and geo¬ 
logical specimens, and in the winter 
to arrange, classity and study them, 
also to make exchanges. 
At the fair held at this place the 
forepart of the month, our collection 
of butterhies and moths took first 
premium. The finest collection of 
curiosities on exhibition, in fact the 
finest we have ever seen, were those 
of Adolph May’s. They were col¬ 
lected by himself in Australia, and 
e\)nsisted mostly of sea curiosities, 
among wbiidi we might mention 
numerous varieties of sea urchins, 
corals, sponges, sand shark’s eggs, 
star fishes, sea horses, shells, etc. 
The collection took first premium. 
The whale swimi? by striking the water up and down 
instead of laterally, with a tinlike horizontal tail. 
