


FOREST AND STREAM. 357 
SR a 

winter by solid walls of frozen earth. A pet black snake, 
confined in a well ventilated, unwarmed room, endured 
weather when the mercury stood at zero in the open air, 
but succumbed at twenty degrees below. I attribute his 
death by freezing to the fact that he was not in a state of 
complete hibernation, as he had frequently been handled 
during the early winter, and thus partially aroused from 
his stupor. A very interesting series of experiments could 
‘be made upon the hibernation of reptiles. 
“How is the water adder constituted that he can remuin under 
water?” 
‘Cold blooded animals, such as serpents, consume little 
“food, and, even when in activity, little oxygen, in this re- 
“spect forming a marked contrast with highly vitalized, 
‘warm blooded animals. Birds, for instance, in their ner- 
‘vous, restless activity, require incredibly large supplies of 
food and a miniature blast furnace of oxygen to supply the 
‘incessant waste of their tissues. Serpents, on the contrary, 
‘pass the greater part of their lives ina state of sluggish 
‘repose, much like that of the higher animals in hiberna- 
tion. Hibernating mammals can be kept under water for 
‘an hour at a time without harm, though three or four min- 
‘utes would be sufficient to kill them if they were in their 
‘natural state of activity. The nearly complete suspension 
vof ‘ali the functions of life reduces the demand for air, as 
for food, almost to zero. The water snake, coiled up un- 
«der a stone at the bottom of a pond is not in a condition to 
‘demand large supplies of oxygen. Still he requires some, 
and a brief glance at his breathing apparatus will show us 
where he gets it.’ Like most other serpents, he has only 
one lung, the other being present merely as a rudiment. 
This lung extends a good deal more than half the length of 
his body, and the lower part is expanded into a membra- 
nous sac, or bag, capable of containing a considerable 
quantity of air. This bag stands Mr, Tropidonatus sipedon 
in good stead in more ways than one. When he dives he 
swallows his meal in a single mouthful, which is so ungen- 
teelly large that it presses against his windpipe and stops 
his breathing, so that for the time being he must get his 
oxygen from his internal reservoir. Then when he makes 
@ voyage under water he can carry with him a cargo of 
‘good fresh air. 
I have not compared the lungs of the water’and land 
snakes, but I imagine that very little difference would be 
‘letected. Professor Agassiz made a very interesting series 
of experiments with a view to determining the relative 
Jung capacities of land and water turtles. He proceeded 
‘by pumping ail the air from the living turtle, then pump- 
ing them full of water, then pumping out and measuring 
the water. He found that the capacity of the lungs of the 
dand turtle averages twice as much in proportion to the 
‘weight of tke body.as that of the water inhabiting species, 
salthough the sea turtles carry a sufficient supply of air in 
their lungs to enable them to remain under water a half 
shour er more. 
It will be found that water animals, as a rule, have their 
‘breathing organs much smaller than land animals. This 
sapparent paradox is explained by the fact that a large 
‘amount of oxygen may be absorbed by the skin from the 
air diffused through the water. G. BRowN GooDE 
Smithsonian Institution, January 3, 1874. 
——___-0 ge _ 
DO SNAKES HISS? 
easel seas 
Eprror Forest AND STREAM:— 
Let any one tease a bull snake, and he will be satisfied 
that they do. Last October I killed a snake on the prairie 
in Adair county, Iowa, five feet long, about an inch thick, 
tail extremely sharp, back dusky, and belly very brilliant 
lemon color. No one there had ever seen or heard of such 
asnake. I did not examine it to see if it was vengmous. 
Can some one tell me its name? O. H. Hampton. 
C—O 
MONKEY BRIDGE BUILDERS. 
= 
Eprror Forest aNnD STREAM:— : 
To throw light upon doubtful questions or statements in 
regard to anything in natural history, even if not concern- 
ing game, is, I suppose, within the province of Forrsr 
AND Srream. In Scribner's for January, under the head 
of ‘Nature and Science,” is the following :— 
“In an article on this subject [bridge building] Mr. John 
W. Murphy says:—The first bridge builders that were of 
kin to humanity were of the monkey race. Travellers 
who have been through the wilds of Africa, South Ameri- 
ca, and portions of India, tell us how the monkey is a 
bridge builder. The traveller has frequently described 
how he has seen a convoy of monkeys making the attempt 
to cross the stream, and proceeding by a process which is 
described in this wise:—The leading monkey climbs a tree, 
as close to the shore as can be selected, holding by his fore- 
arms to the limb of the tree. He gives opportunity to 
each succeeding monkey to entwine himself with his pre- 
hensile tail, until, one after the other, they have become 
so attached, head and tail (the height of the tree being 
equal to the width of the stream), that the lower monkey, 
starting forward from the ground, by a pendulum move- 
ment swings himself to the opposite side of the stream. 
He then climbs the nearest tree, and when he has gained 
the height of the first monkey it will be easy to understand 
that there will be formed acatenary curve of monkeys from 
tree to tree across the stream. On this curve the youthful 
monkeys, the comparatively infantile monkeys, and the 
aged inonkeys cross in perfect safety. and no monkey, 
either youthful, infantile, or aged, wets his feet in the 
water in crossing. : 
‘‘Now let us see how our catenary bridge is removed 
when its work is done. The first monkey by a signal from 
the other side of the stream, lets go his hold of the limb 
and swings gracefully to the opposite side. Now, if Dar- 
win be correct, and we are descendants of a race of mon- 
. 
keys, then it must be truthfully said that our ancestors 
have given us the best thought; and principles of bridge 
construction.” 
Humboldt, in his “Travels,” (Bohn’s ed., vol. 2, p. 69 
says:—‘‘The uniformity with which the araguatos (simia 
ursina) perform their movements is extremely striking. 
Whenever the branches of neighboring trees do not touch 
each other the male who leads the party suspends himself 
by the callous and prehensile part of his tail; and, letting fall 
the rest of his body swings himself till, in one of his os- 
cillations, he reaches the neighboring branch. The whole 
file perform the same movements on the same spot. It is 
almost superfluous to add how dubious is the assertion of 
Ulloa, and so many otherwise well-informed travellers, ac- 
cording to whom the marimondos (simia belzebuth), the ara- 
guatos, and other monkeys wita a prehensile tail, form a 
sort of chain in order to reach the opposite side of a river. 
We had opportunities, during five years, of observing thou- 
sands of animals, and for this veryreason we place no con- 
fidence in statements possibly invented by the Europeans 
themselves, though repeated by the Indians of the missions 
as if they had been transmitted to them by their fathers. 
Man, the most remote from civilization, enjoys the aston- 
ishment he excites in recanting the marvels of his country. 
He says he has seen what he imagines may have been seen 
by others. Every savage is a hunter, and the stories of 
hunters borrow from the imagination in proportion as the 
animals of which they boast the artifices are endowed with 
a high degree of intelligence. Hence, arises the fictions of 
which foxes, monkeys, crows, and the condor of the Andes, 
have been the subjects in both¢hemispheres.” 
Certainly if such an eminent scientific and critical ob- 
server as Humboldt fails to see such an exhibition during 
an observation of five years, seeing thousands of these ani- 
mals, and characterized the story as dubious, the proba- 
bilities are against its being witnessed by the ordinary trav- 
eller. It is not the first time that a love for the marvellous 
has led to invention or exaggeration. Probably in this case 
the fact of the single monkey swinging from branch to 
branch has been the foundation for the fiction of the chain. 
While such stories may sometimes serve very prettily to 
‘point a moral or adorn a tale,” it would seem to be in the 
interest of science, and a desire for exact knowledge in all 
departments of natural history, that anything doubtful or 
bordering on the marvellous should be given currency with 
caution, and especially should not be used as an introduc- 
tion to an article on such a subject supposed to require ac: 
curacy of statement as ‘Bridge Building.” 
It would also seem to me, aside from the authority of 
Humboldt, that a little thought would demonstrate the im- 
probability of the bridge story. In the first place the pen- 
dulum movement would require swinging room back of the 
bank of the river, which the dense and luxuriant vegeta- 
tion of the tropics would allow but in few places. Again, 
when we realize that the pendulum must acauire sufficient 
motion to attain a horizontal position to reach across the 
stream, as wide as the tree is high, it is diffieult to conceive 
where the motive power is to come from; surely not from 
the swinging or swaying of the lower monkey of the liy- 
ing chain, say twenty-five or thirty feet long. But given a 
tree as high as the stream is wide, and granting the swinging 
sufficient, the pendulum not being rigid, but a chain, would 
sag, and diminish its reaching powers, if I may $0 speak, so 
that when the end monkey of the chain had gained the 
height of the first, the chord of the ‘‘catenary curve” would 
not reach across the stream. And again, how could the 
end monkey /and on the opposite bank, as the description 
quoted would seem to imply? for when in a direct line be- 
tween the swinging point and the opposite bank he would 
be aconsiderable distance from it, and his landing and 
climbing the nearest tree would indicate a wonderful elastic 
power in the chain. The strength and ability of the first 
monkey to sustain the weight and tension of the swinging 
chain described, and other points of doubt, might also be 
suggested. What says Forest anp STREAM? 8.L.8. 
me ge 
—J. T. Wilson, of Brighton, Massachusetts, writes to us 
that he hasa mounted specimen of a milk white wood- 
cook, which was killed about fifteen years since by Elijah 
Bronson in Milton, Massachusetts, and bagged at the time 
with other coeks of the ordinary color and species. He 
adds that this is the ‘‘only one I ever saw, but I think I 
have heard of one in Troy, New York.” [We will thank 
our readers to continue their reports on albinoism, to fur- 
nish data for a comprehensive article on this interesting 
subject. The cumulative evidence of facts is invalua- 
ble. |—Ep. 
ee SS eo 
DEPARTMENT OF PuBLIC PARKS, ) 
OFFICE OF MENAGERIE, . 
New York, January 10th, 1874. \ 
Animals received at Central Park Menagerie for the week 
ending January 9th, 1874:— . 
Two giraffes, Camelopardalis giraffa. 
Placed on exhibition. 
Two sea lions, Mumetopsus stellert. Hab. Northern Pa- 
W. A. Conxuin. 
Hab. Africa. 
cific Ocean. Placed on exhibition. 

—One of your young legal gentlemen substituted a cus- 
pidor for the old fashioned receptacle. Within an hour 
after the purchase, two freshly lighted twenty cent cigars 
rolled off the desk and disappeared in its yawning mouth. 
Shortly after, a letter from his affianced, enclosing a photo- 
graph, got joggled off and shot intothesamechasm. Then 
he took the cuspidor into the yard, and attacked it with an 
axe.—Danbury News. 
Woodland, Lwn and Garden. 
THE BOX, AN INCREASE OF PLANTS. 
—_—>~—___—. 
NUMBER Ivy. 
“Throw hither all your quaint enamell’d eyes 
That on the green turf suck the hurried showers, 
And purple all the ground with venal flowers; 
Bring the rath primrose that forsaken dies, 
The tufted crow-tree and pale jessamine, 
The white pink and the pansy frecked with jet, 
The glowing violet: 
The musk-rose, and the well attired woodbines, 
With houslick green that raise the pensive head, 
And every flower that sad embroidery weaves." 
ea S 
fe our last paper—No. II].—we gave our readers some 
advanced idea: with regard to improving and elaborat- 
ing the plants in the box of earth within the common win- 
dow. This you will at once admit can be very much im- 
proved upon, and greater progress made in number of 
plants and soils, and many ornamental additions intro- 
duced as the simple results of suggestive embellishment. 
You first commenced, perhaps, with a sinele rose tree, a 
violet, or a hyacinth bulb. You learned in our practical 
paper that a knowledge of the soil necessary to the growth 
of these plants must, if not already known, be acquired. . 
You are now somewhat acquainted with the chemistry of 
the making of soils, and preparing the same for your 
plants. You have from a few simple instructions pro- 
duced a perfect blossom of the rose, the violet, and the 
hyacinth. You have learned that the soils thus prepared 
will grow many of the species cultivated, and you have 
not to learn this again; only to remember it. You now 
propose to make a garden within your window, which we 
will suppose to be a goodly-sized bay window, fronting on 
a southerly aspect. Plants of one species love full sun- 
shine, of another quiet shade, and of another sunlight and 
shade, and some will rejoice in a tropical clime, warm and 
humid. These different climaterics you will have more or 
less to imitate or produce, if you would rejoice your eyes 
with fairy grottoes or tropical dells in a miniature window 
garden. All these you can have in a greater or less degree 
of perfection, according as you are skilled or unskilled in 
the works of your hands. Your box may be made to fit 
into the window seat only, or made larger and deeper, as 
hereinafter described; if for the seat only the width may 
be such as to bring it nearly out to the sides of the room, 
say a shelf of three feet in width by fifteen inches in 
height. This may be made of half inch pine, with a good 
bottom. In this box you can place a zine pan, with a hole 
in the bottom, to hold the earth, and with a good drain- 
age; fill it with broken crock even with the top of the zine 
pan, which is to be four inches in depth. Having now 
filled in your earth to the right depth, you can plant out 
quite a variety of plants, being careful not to put in too 
many plants or too close together. Nursing plants is one 
thing, and massing them another. 
With such a base as you have before you you can create 
a beautiful exhibition of winter blossoming flowers, con- 
sisting of many varieties. On each end of your box next 
the window you can place some upright round pine rods, 
one inch in diameter, at proper distances from each other, 
and upon these narrow shelves small pots may be placed. 
These shelves may be many or few in number, according 
as you may desire. You can create at one enda sort of 
rock work, and leave small niches for prepared earth, to 
germinate the crocus, the cacti, oxalis, small ferns, and 
many interesting climbing and trailing plants. The effect 
of this may be enhanced by covering the rough framework 
of shelves with a paper, sanded and painted, to resemble 
rock. Small, clear pieces of granite rock, etc., can be 
used very effectively,in this connection, but all this requires 
taste and study, as well as a knowledge of soils and plants, 
Have your shelves so constructed that they do not oceupy 
more than six or seven inches of your box, and then yow 
can commence the planting of your box at once. Your 
rock work may be, if you desire, two or three feet in 
height, if well constructed. Now, we suppose you will 
like to plant some flowers that love the sun. Suppose you 
try with one or two fine hardy rose bushes—say four gera- 
niums, fine plants, different varieties, but of nearly the 
same size, two heliotropes. two verbenas, one daphne, and 
one azalia, These you well know are to be placed near the 
glass, and may without detriment have the full direct rays 
of the sun, and they will flourish if well attended to other- 
wise. Youcanalso set in this box hyacinths, crocuses, 
etc., near the base of the shelf of rock work, and at the 
part having the least sun two or three good strong English 
violet roots, sinking the pots even with the level of the 
earth in your window box. If, asis the case sometimes, 
you have in your box case a cool recess at one side or end, 
then this is just the place for a well potted camelia to 
stand. Camelias always delight in cool, moist atmospheres, 
and this should be ever kept in mud. 
You car grow in such a box asthe one here described 
the calla lily, canna, marsanta, and bavardias, and among 
the rock work several kinds of rare and curious plants and 
bulbs. The striped grasses, if not too profusely used, give 
a pleasing effect to the corners of the rock work, while a 
spray or two of the variegated periwinkle will be very ef- 
fective. Upon these bits of rock work, as you progress 
with your study, you can place several specics of mosses, 
which will be perfectly at home in such a situation as this. 
Some time since I gave a plan for the construction of 
quite a large window box, designed to stand within a large 
sized bay window, into which I introduced a sort of sub- 
tropicaliclime | with, good success. Among its attractive 

