Part 2

"The _cedar_ has been recommended, among other woods, for the purpose of constructing drawers for cabinets of insects. Let the inexperienced collector be warned that this is, perhaps, the _very worst_ wood that can be employed for the purpose; a strong effluvia, or sometimes a resinous gum, exudes from the wood of the cedar, which is apt to settle in blotches on the wings of the specimens, especially of the more delicate Lepidóptera, and entirely discharges the colour. The Rev. Mr. Bree once had a whole collection of lepidopterous insects utterly spoiled from having been deposited in cedar drawers; and he has understood, also, that the insects in the British Museum, collected, he believes, chiefly by Dr. Leach, have been greatly injured from the same cause. Possibly, however, cedar wood, after it has been thoroughly well seasoned, may be less liable to produce these injurious effects."

Habits of the Common Snake in Captivity.

A Staffordshire Correspondent writes thus familiarly:

"This has been a remarkably good season, both for vegetables and animals. It has been a singular time for adders, snakes, and lizards; I never saw so many as I have seen this year in all my life. I have been trying, a great part of this summer, to domesticate a common snake, and make it familiar with me and my children; but all to no purpose, notwithstanding I favoured it with my most particular attention. It was a most beautiful creature, only 2 ft. 7 in. long. I did not know how long it had been without food when I caught it; but I presented it with frogs, toads, worms, beetles, spiders, mice, and every other delicacy of the season. I also tried to charm it with music, and my children stroked and caressed it; but all in vain: it would be no more familiar with any of us than if we had been the greatest strangers to it, or even its greatest enemies. I kept it in an old barrel, out of doors, for the first three weeks: during that time, I can aver, it ate nothing; but, after a very wet night, it seemed to suffer from the cold. I then put it into a glass vessel, and set it on the parlour chimney-piece, covering the vessel with a piece of silk gauze. I caught two live mice, and put them in to it; but they would sooner have died of hunger than the snake would have eaten them: they sat shivering on its back, while it lay coiled up as round as a ball of worstep. I gave the mice some boiled potatoes, which they eat: but the snake would eat neither the mice nor the potatoes. My children frequently took it out in their hands, to show it to their schoolfellows; but my wife, and some others, could not bear the sight of it. I one day took it in my hand, and opened its mouth with a penknife, to show a gentleman how different it was from that of the adder, which I had dead by me: its teeth being no more formidable or terrific than the teeth of a trout or eel; while the mouth of the adder had two fangs, like the claws of a cat, attached to the roof of the mouth, no way connected with its jaw-teeth. While examining the snake in this manner, it began to smell most horridly, and filled the room with an abominable odour; I also felt, or thought I felt, a kind of prickly numbness in the hand I held it in, and did so for some weeks afterwards. In struggling for its liberty, it twisted itself round my arm, and discharged its excrements on my coat-sleeve, which seemed nothing more than milk, or like the chalkings of a woodcock. It made its escape from me several times by boring a hole through the gauze; I had lost it for some days at one time, when at length it was observed peeping out of a mouse-hole behind one of the cellar steps. Whether it had caught any beetles or spiders in the cellar, I cannot say; but it looked as fierce as a hawk, and hissed and shook its tongue, as in open defiance. I could not think of hurting it by smoking it out with tobacco or brimstone; but called it my fiery dragon which guarded my ale cellar. At length I caught it, coiled up on one of the steps. I put it again into an American flour barrel; but it happened not to be the same as he had been in, and I observed a nail protruding through the staves about half way up. This, I suppose, he had made use of to help his escape; for he was missing one morning about ten o'clock: I had seen him at nine o'clock; so I thought he could not be far off. I looked about for him for half an hour, when I gave up the hunt in despair. However, at one o'clock, as the men were going from dinner, one of them observed the rogue hiding himself under a stone, fifty yards from the house. 'Dang my buttons,' said he, 'if here is not master's snake. He came back and told my wife, who told him to go and kill it. It happened to be _washing-day_: the washerwoman gave him a pailful of scalding soapsuds to throw on it; but whether he was most afraid of me or of the snake is still a question: however, the washerwoman brought it home with the tongs, and dropped it into the dolly-tub. It dashed round the tub with the velocity of lightning; my daughter, seeing its agony, snatched it out of the scalding liquid, but too late: it died in a few minutes. I was not at all angry with my wife: I had had my whim, and she had had hers. I had got all the knowledge I wanted to get; I had learned that it was of no use for a human being, who requires food three times a day, to domesticate an animal which can live weeks and months without food: for, as the saying is, 'Hunger will tame any thing;' and without hunger you can tame nothing. I have also learned that the serpent, instead of being the emblem of wisdom, should have been an emblem of stupidity."

"The stench emitted by the common snake, when molested, is superlatively noisome; and is given off so powerfully and copiously, that it infects the air around to a diameter of several yards. This I witnessed on observing a bitch dog kill a rather large snake; in which act two points beside the odour effused were notable. The coils of the snake formed, as it were, a circular wall; and in the circular space between it, the snake sunk its head, as if for protection. The dog's efforts were to catch and crush the head; and, shrivelling up her fleshy lips, 'which all the while ran froth,' she kept thrusting the points of her jaws into the circular pit aforesaid, and catching at and fracturing the head. During the progress of these acts, she, every few seconds, snorted, and shook off the froth, of which she seemed sedulously careful to free herself, and barked at the conquered snake. The dog was a most determined vermin-killer, and in rats, &c., quite an accomplished one; but snakes did not often come in her way."--J.D.

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CURIOUS FACTS IN VEGETATION

(From Part xiv. of _Knowledge for the People, or the Plain Why and Because._)

Why is it improper to consider the turnip a real bulb?

Because it is an intermediate stem which swells into a bulbous form. Turnips have not been cultivated in England, in fields, more than a century; but this agricultural practice now yields an annual return which probably exceeds the interest of our national debt.--_Sir Walter Scott._

Why is the Cauliflower so named?

Because of its origin from _caulis,_ the stalk of a herb. Colewort is of a similar origin.

Why are the stems of the Cabbage tribe considered wholesome food?

Because their acrid flavour is dipersed among an abundance of mucilage. Cabbages were commonly used among the ancients, and Cato wrote volumes on their nature. The Indians had so much veneration for them, that they swore by cabbages, and were therein as superstitious as the Egyptians, who gave divine honours to leeks and onions, for the great benefits which they said they received from them.--_Lemery on Food._

Why do Cabbages emit a strong animal odour?

Because they contain a great quantity of azote or nitrogen, one of the ultimate elements of animal matter, and strongly characterized in the destructive distillation of horn, hoofs, or bones.

Why do not the leaves of the Cabbage remain wet, after being immersed in water, and again taken out of it?

Because they are powdered with a slight layer of resinous matter, similar to that which covers certain fruits, and, in particular, plums and grapes. Their sea-green colour is also attributed to this resinous layer.

Why is Quassia so called? Because it was named in honour of a negro, Quassia, a drunken doctor, who discovered the virtue of the wood in curing malignant fevers.

Why is the Ice plant so called?

Because its stem is covered with soft tubercles, or excrescences, which have a crystalline appearance.

Why do the leaves of some trees fall very early?

Because they are articulated to the branch; that is, they do not unite with it by the whole of their base, but are simply fixed to it by a kind of contraction or articulation; as in the maple and horse chestnut.

Why do leaves fall at the approach of winter?

Because a separation takes place, either in the foot-stalk, or more usually at its base, and the dying part quits the vigorous one, which is promoted by the weight of the leaf itself, or the action of the gales that blow in autumn on its expanded form. M. Richard explains the cause more philosophically: "Although the fall of the leaves generally takes place at the approach of winter, cold is not to be considered as the principal cause of this phenomenon. It is much more natural to attribute it to the cessation of vegetation, and the want of nourishment which the leaves experience at that season, when the course of the sap is interrupted. The vessels of the leaf contract, dry up, and soon after, that organ is detached from the twig on which it had been developed."

Why do some trees, as the Oak, the Beech, and the Hornbeam, retain their leaves to a late period of autumn?

Because the life of the twigs on which they grow is not sufficiently vigorous to throw them off, after the brown colour indicates that they are dead.

Why have some plants been termed the Poor Man's Weather-glass?

Because they shut up their flowers against the approach of rain. Linnaeus, however, thinks, that flowers lose their fine sensibility, after the anthers have performed their office, or when deprived of them artificially. Sir James Smith also observes, that some species are sometimes exhausted by continued wet; "and it is evident that very sudden thunder showers often take such flowers by surprise, the previous state of the atmosphere not having been such as to give them due warning."

Many flowers have a regular time of opening and shutting. We have already mentioned the Marigold; the goat's-beard is vulgarly called "John go-to-bed at noon," from its closing at mid-day; and at the Cape of Good Hope there is a "four o'clock flower," because it invariably closes at that time. The common daisy is, however, a readier example, its name being a compound of day's and eye--Day's-eye, in which way, indeed, it is written by Ben Johnson. It regularly shuts after sun-set, to expand again with the morning light. Thus,--

The little dazie, that at evening closes.

Spenser.

By a daisy, whose leaves spread, Shut when Titian goes to bed.--_G. Withers._

Leyden sings of moist or rainy weather foretold by daisies. Thus we may examine a whole field, and not find a daisy open, except such as have their flowering nearly over, and have in consequence lost their sensibility.

The daisy is one of the pet flowers of the poets. Chaucer is ecstatic in its praise, and calls it his "owne hartes' rest;" Burns, "Wee, modest, crimson-tipped flower;" and Wordsworth, in beautiful and touching simplicity, has addressed several poems to "the poet's darling."

Appended to Richard's valuable "Elements," is the _Horologium Florae,_ (timepiece of Flora,) or a table of the hours at which certain plants expand and shut, at Upsal, 60 deg. north latitude. The earliest Meadow Salsafy opens from 3 to 4 A.M.; and closes from 9 to 10 A.M. The latest A.M. is the _Mesembryanthemum Modiflorum,_ (used in the manufacture of Maroquin leather,) which opens 10 to 11 A.M., and closes at 12 P.M. The latest opening P.M. is the _Cactus Grandiflorus,_ 9 to 10 P.M., and closing at 12 P.M., thus remaining open only two or three hours. Other flowers, we may add, are so peculiarly delicate, as scarcely to bear the contact of the atmosphere.

Forster, in his "Researches about Atmospheric Phenomena," notices several prognostics of the weather by plants. Thus, Chickweed has been said to be an excellent weather-guide. When the flower expands freely, no rain need be feared for a long time. In showery days the flower appears half concealed, and this state may be regarded as indicative of showery weather; when it is entirely shut, we may expect a rainy day. If the flowers of the Siberian sowthistle remain open all night, we may expect rain next day. Before showers, the trefoil contracts its leaves. Lord Bacon observes, that the trefoil has its stalk more erect against rain. He also mentions a small red flower, growing in stubble-fields, called by the country people _wincopipe_, which, if it opens in the morning, assures us of a fine day.

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TRAVELS

_Pen and Pencil Sketches of India, being the Journal of a Tour in India. By Captain Mundy._

These are two very amusing volumes of scenes and situations full of stirring interest, as their criticships would say--for example the four extracts immediately following:

Palankeen Travelling and a Sortie of Tigers.

"To those unitiated into the mysteries of Indian travelling, the prospect of a journey of six hundred miles, night and day, in a hot climate, inclosed in a sort of coffin-like receptacle, carried on the shoulders of men, is somewhat alarming; but to one more accustomed to that method of locomotion, the palankeen would, perhaps, prove less fatiguing and harassing, for a long journey, than any other conveyance.

"The horizontal or reclining position is naturally the most easy to the body; and the exhaustion consequent upon a journey in the heat of the day, generally secures to the traveller as much sleep during the cooller hours of the night, as the frequent interruptions of the bearers at the several stages will allow him to enjoy. I had laid in a good store of tea, sugar, and biscuits, a novel, some powder and shot, a gun, and a sword, and plenty of blankets, as a defence against the coldness of the night. Our baggage consisted of a dozen boxes (patarras) appended to bamboos, and carried by men: these, with two torch-bearers (mussalgees) to each palankeen, completed our cavalcade.

"Nov. 24th, 7 A.M., reached Hazarebaug, a small station, about two hundred and twenty miles from Calcutta. It is a healthy spot; the earth sandy and rocky, presenting a strong contrast to the loomy and alluvial soil of Southern Bengal. From Rogonnâthpore to Hazarebaug the road runs through an almost uninterrupted jungle, swarming with wild beasts. At this place we met with a hospitable friend, who stored our palankeens with provisions, after giving us a capital breakfast.

"At eleven o'clock at night we entered the famous pass of Dunghye. The road bears the appearance of a deep sandy ravine; the banks are rocky and woody, and in many places quite overhung by the forest-trees. We had accomplished about half the defile, when I was suddenly and rudely awakened from a dozing sleep by the shock of my palankeen coming to the ground, and by the most discordant shouts and screams. I jumped out to ascertain the cause of the uproar, and found, on inquiry, that a foraging party of tigers--probably speculating upon picking up a straggling bearer--had sprung off the rocks, and dashed across the road, bounding between my palankeen and that of Colonel D., who was scarcely ten yards a-head. The bearers of both palankeens were all huddled together, bellowing like bedlamites, and the mussalgees waving their torches most vehemently. On mustering our forces, we discovered that two of our patarra-bearers were missing, and fearing that the tigers might pick them up, we dispatched four men with spare torches to bring them on. Meanwhile my friend and myself, having brought our palankeens together, armed ourselves with patience and a pair of pistols to await the result. The whole incident, with the time and scene, was highly interesting and wild, with just enough of the awful to give an additional piquancy. The night was dark and stormy, and the wind roared among the trees above our heads: the torches cast a red and flickering light on the rocks in our immediate neighbourhood, and just showed us enough of the depths of the forest to make the back ground more gloomy and unfathomable. The distant halloos of the men who were gone in search of their comrades, came faintly and wildly upon the breeze; and the occasional shots that we fired rang through the rocky jungle with an almost interminable echo. In about three quarters of an hour our bearers joined us, together with the two patarra-bearers. These latter, hearing the vociferations of our men, and guessing the cause, had quietly placed their boxes on the ground, about a mile in the rear of us, and seating themselves on their heels, had determined not to proceed until the break of day.

"All being reported present, we resumed our journey, the men screaming chorus to scare our unwelcome visitors, whom I several times fancied I heard rustling among the brushwood on the road side, as though they were moving on our flanks in order to cut off any straggler who might drop astern. I never saw bearers go more expeditiously, or in more compact order, every man fearing to be the last in the cavalcade.[1] A sheet would have covered the whole party! The tigers, if they had calculated upon one of our number for their evening meal, must have gone supperless to their lair, for we mustered all our twenty-four men in the morning. A dâk hurkarah (post messenger) had been carried off in the same spot two days before, probably by the same family of tigers, which according to the bearer's account, consisted of two old ones, and three cubs.

[Footnote 1: It is said, that a tiger lying in wait for a string of passengers usually selects the last of the party.]

Wild Beast Fights

"Early in the morning, the whole party, including ladies, eager for the novel spectacle, mounted elephants, and repaired to the private gate of the royal palace, where the King met the Commander-in-Chief, and conducted him and his company to a palace in the park, in one of the courts of which the arena for the combats was prepared. In the centre was erected a gigantic cage of strong bamboos, about fifty feet high, and of like diameter, and rooffed with rope network. Sundry smaller cells, communicating by sliding doors with the main theatre, were tenanted by every species of the savagest inhabitants of the forest. In the large cage, crowded together, and presenting a formidable front of broad, shaggy foreheads well armed with horns, stood a group of buffaloes sternly awaiting the conflict, with their rear scientifically appuyé against the bamboos. The trap-doors being lifted, two tigers, and the same number of bears and leopards, rushed into the centre. The buffaloes instantly commenced hostilities, and made complete shuttlecocks of the bears, who, however, finally escaped by climbing up the bamboos beyond the reach of their horned antagonists. The tigers, one of which was a beautiful animal, fared scarcely better; indeed, the odds were much against them, there being five buffaloes. They appeared, however to be no match for these powerful creatures, even single-handed, and showed little disposition to be the assaulters. The larger tiger was much gored in the head, and in return took a mouthful of his enemy's dewlap, but was finally (as the fancy would describe it) 'bored to the ropes and floored.' The leopards seemed throughout the conflict sedulously to avoid a breach of the peace.

"A rhinoceros was next let loose in open courtyard, and the attendants attempted to induce him to pick a quarrel with a tiger who was chained to a ring. The rhinoceros appeared, however, to consider a fettered foe as quite beneath his enmity; and having once approached the tiger, and quietly surveyed him, as he writhed and growled, expecting the attack, turned suddenly round and trotted awkwardly off to the yard gate, where he capsized a palankeen which was carrying away a lady fatigued with the sight of these unfeminine sports.

"A buffalo and tiger were the next combatants: they attacked furiously, the tiger springing at the first onset on the other's head, and tearing his neck severely; but he was quickly dismounted, and thrown with such violence as nearly to break his back, and quite to disable him from renewing the combat.

"A small elephant was next impelled to attack a leopard. The battle was short and decisive; the former falling on his knees, and thrusting his blunted tusks nearly through his antagonist.

"On our return from the beast fight a breakfast awaited us at the royal palace; and the white tablecloth being removed, quails, trained for the purpose, were placed upon the green cloth, and fought most gamely, after the manner of the English cockpit. This is an amusement much in fashion among the natives of rank, and they bet large sums on their birds, as they lounge luxuriously round, smoking their houkahs.

Hunting with Leopards

"The leopards are each accommodated with a flat-topped cart, without sides, drawn by two bullocks, and each animal has two attendants. They are loosely bound by a collar and rope to the back of the vehicle, and are also held by the keeper by a strap round the loins. A leathern hood covers their eyes. The antelopes being excessively timid and wild, the best way to enjoy the sport is to sit on the cart alongside the driver; for the vehicle being built like the hackeries of the peasants, to the sight of which the deer are accustomed, it is not difficult, by skilful management, to approach within two hundred yards of the game. On this occasion we had three chetahs in the field, and we proceeded towards the spot where the herd had been seen, in a line, with an interval of about one hundred yards between each cart. On emerging from a cotton-field, we came in sight of four antelopes, and my driver managed to get within one hundred yards of them ere they took alarm. The chetah was quickly unhooded, and loosed from his bonds; and as soon as he viewed the deer he dropped quietly off the cart, on the _opposite_ side to that on which they stood, and approached them at a slow, crouching canter, masking himself by every bush and inequality of ground which lay in in his way. As soon, however, as they began to show alarm, he quickened his pace, and was in the midst of the herd in a few bounds.

"He singled out a doe, and ran it close for about two hundred yards, when he reached it with a blow of his paw, rolled it over, and in an instant was sucking the life-blood from its throat.

"One of the other chetahs was slipped at the same time, but after making four or five desperate bounds, by which he nearly reached his prey, suddenly gave up the pursuit, and came growling sulkily back to his cart.

"As soon as the deer is pulled down, a keeper runs up, hoods the chetah cuts the victim's throat, and receiving some of the blood in a wooden ladle, thrusts it under the leopard's nose. The antelope is then dragged away, and placed in a receptacle under the hackery, whilst the chetah is rewarded with a leg for his pains."[1]

[Footnote 1: A pair of fine Chetahs, or Hunting Leopards, may be seen in the Gardens of the Zoological Society.--ED. M.]

An Alligator in the Ganges.