The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 13, No. 354, January 31, 1829

SPIRIT OF DISCOVERY

Hydrophobia in Foxes

Foxes become mad occasionally, and there have been examples of dogs, which having been bitten by mad foxes, have not caught the disease. In these cases it has been proved that the stomachs of the foxes were filled with wood, earth, stones, leaves, hair, and other substances improper for nourishment. On the contrary, when the madness has been communicated, the stomach and intestines have been found completely empty. From this difference, it is concluded that hunger is the cause of madness in foxes; and this agrees with the results which occurred during and after the rigorous winter of 1826-7, when these animals, with many others, suffered from want of nourishment.—From the French.

Ripening Fruit

Slates have recently been employed in France for hastening the ripening of fruits. The effect was first observed on a slate roof; since which the slates have been placed beneath the fruit on walls.

Hatching Eggs by Hot Mineral Waters

This curious process has lately been practised with great success in the south of France. It consists in putting the eggs into a small basket, suspending the latter in a stove heated by the hot mineral water, and turning the eggs every day. The first trial was attended with success, and no failure was experienced in four repetitions of it.

Lake Erie

The height of Lake Erie above the Atlantic Ocean, has been ascertained to be 565 feet. The barrier which contains it is so low, that, were it only to rise six feet, it would inundate, on its northern and western borders, seven millions of acres, now partly occupied by towns, villages, and farms; and it is estimated that a further rise of six or eight feet would precipitate a vast flood of waters over the state of Illinois, from the south end of Michigan; the great Canadian Lakes then discharging also into the Mexican Gulf.—Brande's Journal.

The Cuckoo

Has done more for our music than musicians may be willing to allow; but it is no more than justice to a despised bird to say, that from it we have derived the minor scale, whose origin has puzzled so many; the cuckoo's couplet being the minor third sung downwards.—Mag. Nat. Hist.

Immense Fir-tree

In the Museum of Natural History at Strasburg, is shown the trunk of a silver fir-tree, from the forest of Hochwald, at Barr, in Alsatia. The tree was 150 feet high, with a trunk perfectly straight and free from branches to the height of 50 feet, after which it was forked with the one shoot 100 feet long, and the other somewhat shorter. The diameter of the trunk at the surface of the ground was 8 feet; estimated age 350 years.—Ibid.

The Weather by Frogs

The editor of the Magazine of Natural History, in his Notes during a recent tour on the continent, says, "at Schwetzingen, in the post-house, we witnessed, for the first time, what we have since seen frequently, an amusing application of zoological knowledge, for the purpose of prognosticating the weather. Two frogs, of the species Ràna arbòrea, are kept in a crystal jar, about 18 inches high, and 6 inches in diameter, with a depth of three or four inches of water at the bottom, and a small ladder reaching to the top of the jar. On the approach of dry weather, the frogs mount the ladder; but, when moisture is expected, they descend into the water. These animals are of a bright green, and in their wild state here, climb the trees in search of insects, and make a peculiar singing noise before rain. In the jar they get no other food than now and then a fly; one of which, we were assured, would serve a frog for a week, though it will eat from six to twelve in a day if it can get them. In catching the flies put alive into the jar the frogs display great adroitness."

Human Remains

The remarkable fact, that no vestiges of human remains have been discovered with those of the more ancient inhabitants of the globe, is at present fully confirmed; nor have any fossil bones of monkeys hitherto been found. Mr. Bakewell, however, observes, that the vast diluvial beds of gravel and clay, and the upper strata in Asia, have not yet been scientifically explored; and both sacred and profane writers agree in regarding the temperate regions of that continent as the cradle of the human race.—Bakewell's Geology.

Food of Bees

The American black willow and the red maple, are the first trees that are visited by bees. They are fond of the crocus, which is the earliest of our bulbous roots. The stercorary and piggery are next resorted to by these insects, and the extract absorbed from them must be used as a tonic. Blossoms of all kinds, excepting those of the red clover and of the honeysuckle, are excellent food; and the bees especially profit by the increased attention bestowed at present on the cultivation of the peach-tree in some parts of America. They not only drink the nectar and abstract the pollen of the flower, but they appropriate the peach itself. We have seen twenty or thirty bees devour a peach in half an hour; that is, they carried the juices of it to their cells. The humming-bird alone can reach the bottom of the nectary of the honeysuckle; but even here the instinct of the bee is seen. The small birds, such as the wren, make an incision on the outside, near the bottom of the flower, and extract a part of the juices. The bee takes advantage of this opening, and avails itself of what is left. The scent of bees is so acute, that every flower which has a powerful odour can be discovered by them at a great distance. Strawberry blossoms, mignonette, wild and garden thyme, herbs of all kinds, apple, plum, cherry, and above all, raspberry blossoms and white clover, are delicious food for them, and a thriving orchard and apiary fitly go together.

North American Review.

Singing Birds

Those who have paid attention to the singing of birds, know well that their voice, energy, and expression differ as widely as in man; and agreeably to this remark, Mr. Wilson (the celebrated ornithologist) says he was so familiar with the notes of an individual wood thrush, that he could recognise him from all his fellows the moment he entered the woods.

Mag. Nat. Hist.

Gigantic Fossils

Some gigantic bones have been exhibited at New Orleans, but the place where they were found is not mentioned in the communication. They consist of one of the bones of the cranium, fifteen or twenty vertebras, two entire ribs, and part of a third, one thigh bone, two bones of the leg, &c. The cranial bone was upwards of twenty feet in its greatest length, about four in extreme width, and it weighed 1,200 lbs. The ribs measured nine feet along the curve, and about three inches in thickness. It had been conjectured that the animal to which these bones belonged was amphibious, and perhaps of the crocodile family. It was also supposed that the animal when alive, must have measured twenty-five feet round the body, and about 130 feet in length.

Trans. Geoloy. Soc.

The Cochineal Insect

Our readers are doubtless aware that cochineal, so extensively used in this country for dying,¹ is a beautiful insect abundantly found in various parts of Mexico and Peru. Some of these insects have lately been sent over to Old Spain, and are doing remarkably well on the prickly pear of that country; indeed, they are said to rival even those of Mexico in the quality and brilliancy of their dye.

Their naturalization may doubtless be extended along the shores of the Mediterranean, Sicily, and the different states of Greece. The prickly pear is indigenous in those places, and by little cultivation will afford sufficient nourishment for the cochineal insects. We are also assured, (says an intelligent correspondent of The Times,) that these precious insects were introduced last year on the island of Malta, by Dr. Gorman, on account of the government, and that they are likely to do well on that island.

Dr. Gorman discovered a few weeks since, in the botanic garden at Cambridge, the grona sylvestris, or wild species of cochineal, living among the leaves of the coffee-plants, the acacia, &c. This is the kermes, or gronilla of Spain, about which so much has been said in endeavouring to identify it with the grona fina. At all events, this is the same species as the gronilla found on the hairs of the green oaks in Andalusia; and in some years large and valuable crops of the gronilla are gathered in that part of Spain by the peasantry, and sold to the Moors to dye their scarlet.

The gardener at Cambridge could not inform Dr. Gorman how long the insects had been there, or from whence they came, but they went there by the appellation of "amelca bug." The gardener found these insects very destructive to plants upon which they fostered, and although he tried every means short of injuring the plants to remove them, he found it impossible, as they adhere to the leaves and parts of the stem with such tenacity, and are so prolific, that the young ones are often found spreading themselves over the neighbouring plants. On this account, it would be worth while to attempt the cultivation of the prickly pear in the open air in this country, and place the insects upon them, for in all probability the insects would, by good management, do well.

Fossil Turtle

The remains of a sea turtle have lately been discovered, and are now in the possession of Mr. Deck, of Cambridge. It is imbedded in a mass of septaria, weighing upwards of 150 pounds, with two fine specimens of fossil wood; and was obtained in digging for cement stone, about five miles from Harwich, in three fathoms water, where, as a mass of stone, it had been used for some time as a stepping block.—Bakewell's Geology.

Geological Changes

The following are the writers whose opinions have obtained the greatest celebrity, as advocates for particular systems accounting for the formation and subsequent alteration of the earth:—

Mr. Whitehurst taught that the concentric arrangement of the crust of the globe was destroyed by the expansive force of subterranean fire.

Burnet's theory supposes this crust to have been broken for the production of the deluge.

Leibnitz and Buffon believed the earth to have been liquefied by fire; in fact, that it is an extinguished sun or vitrified globe, whose surface has been operated upon by a deluge. The latter assumes that the earth was 75,000 years in cooling to its present temperature, and that, in 98,000 years more, productive nature must be finally extinguished.

Woodward considered there was a temporary dissolution of the elements of the globe, during which period the extraneous fossils became incorporated with the general mass.

De Luc, Dolomieu, and, finally Baron Cuvier, unite in the opinion, that the phenomena exhibited by the earth, particularly the alternate deposits of terrestrial and marine productions, can only be satisfactorily accounted for by a series of revolutions similar to the deluge.

Among the singular views entertained by men of genius, in the infancy of the science, are those of Whiston, "who fancied that the earth was created from the atmosphere of one comet, and deluged by the tail of another;" and that, for their sins, the antediluvian population were drowned; "except the fishes, whose passions were less violent."

A French geologist conceived that the sea covered the earth for a vast period; that all animals were originally inhabitants of the water; that their habits gradually changed on the retiring of the waves, and "that man himself began his career as a fish!"—Mag. Nat. Hist.