Kitabı oku: «Birds and all Nature, Vol. V, No. 1, January 1899», sayfa 2
Two characteristic accomplishments of man would not be his if it were not for his versatile tongue; they are spitting and whistling. The drawing of milk in nursing is an act of the tongue, and the power of its muscles as well as the complete control of its movements is an interesting provision of nature. It is believed by some that the pleasures of the taste sense are confined to such animals as suckle their young.
Tongues are rough because the papillæ, which in ordinary skin are hidden beneath the surface, come quite through and stand up like the villi of the digestive canal. The red color of the tongue is due to the fact that the papillæ are so thinly covered that the blood circulating within shows through.
THE MOUNTAIN LION
THIS is only one of the names by which the puma (Felis concolor) is known in the United States. He has different local names, such as tiger, cougar, catamount and panther, or "painter," as the backwoodsmen entitle him, and silvery lion.
The puma ranges the whole of both the Americas from the Straits of Magellan to where the increasing cold in the north of Canada blocks his passage. Like many other large animals, however, the puma has retired before the advance of civilization, and in many of the more thickly populated portions of the United States a straggler, even, is rarely to be found.
The haunts of the puma depend upon the nature of the country. In sections well-wooded he decidedly prefers forests to plains; but his favorite spots are edges of forests and plains grown with very high grass. He always selects for his abode such spots as afford some shelter, in the vicinity of rocks which have caverns for secure concealment, and in which to bring forth his young. He spends the day sleeping on trees, in bushes, or in the high grass; in the evening and at night he goes forth to hunt. He sometimes covers great distances in a single night, and sportsmen do not always find him near the place where he struck down his prey.
All smaller, weak mammals are his prey – deer, sheep, colts, calves, and small quadrupeds generally. When, however, his prey is so large that it cannot all be devoured at one meal, the animal covers it with leaves or buries it in the earth, returning later to finish his repast. This habit is sometimes taken advantage of by his human enemy, who, poisoning the hidden carcass with strychnine, often manages to secure the lion when he comes back to eat it. The use of poison against these and other carnivorous animals by the farmer and stock-raiser has become so general in the West they are rapidly becoming exterminated. If it were not for some such means of defense as this, the sheep-raisers and cattle-growers would be quite powerless to protect their herds from the attacks of the mountain lion and other beasts of prey.
The puma is a very bloodthirsty animal, and whether hungry or not, usually attacks every animal, excepting dogs, that comes in his way. When hungry, however, he disdains no sort of food, feeding even upon the porcupine, notwithstanding the quills which lacerate his mouth and face, or the skunk, heedless of that little animal's peculiar venom. Ordinarily the puma will not attack man, fleeing, indeed, from him when surprised, but he has been known when emboldened by hunger to make such attacks. He, of course, sometimes kills the hunter who has wounded him, though even then, by the cautious, he is little feared; but an unprovoked assault, such as the mangling of a woman in Pennsylvania in the eighties, is rare.
It is the habit of the puma to spring upon his prey from an eminence such as a ledge of rocks, a tree, or a slight rise of ground. If he fails to strike his victim, he seldom pursues it for any considerable distance. In northern regions, however, he sometimes pursues the deer when they are almost helpless in the deep snow. When he has seized his victim, he tears open its neck, and laps its blood before he begins to eat. He devours every part of a small animal, but the larger ones he eats only in part – the head, neck, and shoulders – burying the rest.
Very young cubs when captured soon become thoroughly tamed, enjoying the liberty of a house like a dog. When petted they purr like cats and manifest their affection in much the same manner. When displeased they growl, but a roar has never been heard from them. There is one drawback to a tame puma, however, says Brehm. When he has great affection for his master and likes to play with him, he hides at his approach and unexpectedly jumps on him. One can imagine how startling and uncomfortable would be such an ill-timed caress. An old puma, when captured, sometimes rejects all food, preferring starvation to the loss of liberty.
Every movement of the puma is full of grace and vigor; he is said to make leaps of eighteen feet or more. His sight is keenest in the dusk and by night; his sense of smell is deficient but his hearing is extremely acute.
The lair in which the female brings forth her young is usually in a shallow cavern on the face of some inaccessible cliff or ledge of rocks.
In the southern states, Audubon says, where there are no caves or rocks, the lair of the puma is generally in a very dense thicket or in a canebrake. It is a rude sort of bed of sticks, weeds, leaves and grasses. The number of cubs is from two to five. In captivity two usually are born, but sometimes only one.
THE HOLLY TREE
O reader! hast thou ever stood to see
The Holly tree?
The eye that contemplates it, well perceives
Its glossy leaves,
Ordered by an intelligence so wise
As might confound the atheist's sophistries.
Below a circling fence its leaves are seen
Wrinkled and keen;
No grazing cattle through their prickly round
Can reach to wound;
But as they grow where nothing is to fear,
Smooth and unarmed the pointless leaves appear.
I love to view these things with curious eyes,
And moralize;
And in this wisdom of the Holly tree
Can emblem see
Wherewith perchance to make a pleasant rhyme,
One which may profit in the after-time.
Thus, though abroad perchance I might appear
Harsh and austere,
To those who on my leisure would intrude
Reserved and rude,
Gentle at home amid my friends I'd be
Like the high leaves upon the Holly tree.
And should my youth, as youth is apt, I know,
Some harshness show,
All vain asperities I day by day
Would wear away,
Till the smooth temper of my age should be
Like the high leaves upon the Holly tree.
And as when all the summer trees are seen
So bright and green,
The Holly leaves a sober hue display
Less bright than they,
But when the bare and wintry woods we see,
What then so cheerful as the Holly tree?
– Robert Southey.
THE LEMON
DR. ALBERT SCHNEIDER,
Northwestern University School of Pharmacy, Chicago
THE lemon is the fruit of a small tree from ten to fifteen feet high. It is not particularly beautiful, being rather shrubby in its appearance. It is an evergreen, bearing leaves, flowers, and fruit all the year round. The flowers occur singly in the axils of the leaves. The calyx is persistent, that is, it does not drop off like the corolla, and may be found attached to the base of the fruit. The corolla consists of five spreading petals of a purplish-pink color.
The lemons of the market are from cultivated plants of which there is a large number of varieties. These cultivated varieties or forms took their origin from the wild lemon trees native in northern India, in the mountain forests of the southern Himalayas, in Kumoan, and Sikkim.
Lemons have been known for a long time. They were brought to the notice of the Greeks during the invasion of Alexander the Great into Media where the golden-yellow fruit attracted the attention of the warriors who gave them the name of Median apples (Mala medica). Later, Greek warriors also found this fruit in Persia, and hence named it Persian apples (Mala persica). The eminent Greek philosopher and naturalist Theophrastus, 390 B. C., described the fruit as inedible, though endowed with a fragrant odor, and having the power to keep away insects. On account of this latter property the so-called Median apple was, by some, supposed to be identical with the fruit of the cedar (Kedros) and therefore received the name "Citrus" from which is derived "citrone," the German name, and "citronnier," the French name for the fruit. Our word lemon is said to have been derived from the Indian word limu and the Arabian word limun. It seems that at the time of the great Roman historian and naturalist, Pliny (23-79 A. D.), the lemon was not yet extensively cultivated. Dioscarides (50 A. D.) speaks highly of the medicinal virtues of the bitter and acrid wild-growing lemon. Cælius Aurelianus recommends lemon juice in gout and fevers. In 150 A. D., the lemon tree, evidently introduced, was found growing about Naples and in Sardinia, but the fruit was still inedible. About the third century cultivation had so far improved the fruit that it could be eaten.
The Arabians are credited with first having introduced the lemon tree into southern Europe. The noted Arabian geographer, Edrisi, twelfth century, describes the lemon as very sour and about the size of an apple and the plant as growing only in India. This latter statement is, however, erroneous as the lemon had already been extensively cultivated in southern and eastern Spain, where it was introduced by the agriculturally-inclined Moors. It has been cultivated for many centuries in nearly all of the countries bordering on the Mediterranean Sea and is now also extensively cultivated in the tropical and sub-tropical countries and islands of the Western Hemisphere. One variety or species, (Citrus lemetta), is a native of the East Indies and is extensively cultivated in the West Indies. Lemon trees are found everywhere in the larger green houses and conservatories along with the closely related orange (Citrus vulgaris.)
As the result of cultivation there are now about fifty varieties of lemons in existence. Some of these are comparatively sweet or rather insipid and are therefore known as sweet lemons. The sour varieties are, however, more generally cultivated. Lest I forget I will here state that the lemon is not identical, though closely related, with the Citron, the fruit of the Citrus medica.
As above stated the lemon tree bears fruit all the year round so that a number of crops are gathered annually. There are, however, three principal crops collected as follows: The first from July to the middle of September; the second in November; and the third in January. Frequently there are also collections in April and in May. The tree is rather delicate, not as hardy as the orange, for example. In upper Italy it even becomes necessary to cover the trees during the winter months. Lemons intended for shipment are picked before they are fully ripe and packed in barrels or boxes holding from 400 to 700. When exposed the fruit shrinks and loses in weight very rapidly, due to the evaporation of moisture from the pulpy interior. In Italy each lemon is wrapped in tissue paper to protect it against injury and to reduce the evaporation of moisture. Sometimes they are coated with collodion or covered with lead foil to reduce the loss of moisture.
The lemon is put to various uses. The yellow rind contains many minute cavities which are filled with a fixed oil and an ethereal oil to which the fruit owes its fragrant odor. In Italy the oil is obtained in a very crude way. The peel is cut into three longitudinal slices. The workman takes one of these in his right hand, in the left he grasps a small sponge; by pressing the sponge against the outer surface of the rind so that it becomes concave, the oil-bearing sacs are ruptured and the oil absorbed by the sponge. This is repeated until the sponge becomes saturated, when the juice is squeezed into a cup or other vessel. I am very much afraid that the sponge and the hands of the workman are not always clean. I have been informed that an attempt to introduce machinery for extracting the oil was forcibly resisted. It is also stated that the oil obtained by the "sponge process" is more valuable than that obtained by machinery and distillation. The bitter taste so evident in the lemon is due to limonin and hesperidin, which occur most abundantly in the rind.
The sour taste of the lemon is due to citric acid, which is found in the large cells forming the pulpy interior. Of course the sap is largely water, about 97.5 per cent., with about 2 per cent. citric acid. The amount of acid varies, however, even rising to 9 or 10 per cent. The juice is easily expressed and is put to various uses. Lemonade is largely consumed on ships, as it is said to prevent ship scurvy. Washing face and hands with diluted lemon juice is said to remove tan and freckles. The beneficial properties of lemon juice, lemonade, in fevers is due to its cooling and refreshing effects, and also to the fact that it acts as a heart sedative, thus tending to lower the temperature. Lemon juice has been highly recommended in acute rheumatism and also to counteract the effects of certain poisons, especially opium.
The essential oil of lemon acts as a stimulant and has been used in diseases of the eye (ophthalmia). It also serves to give an agreeable odor to certain medicines, and is used in the manufacture of perfumery and as a flavoring agent for confectionery.
The lemon peel is used in medicine. Candied lemon peel is a confection prepared by boiling the peel in syrup and then allowing the sugar to crystallize.
The following is a description of the excellently colored plate: A is a flowering and fruit-bearing twig, nearly natural size; 1 is a single flower, somewhat magnified; 2, stamens and pistil; 3, ovary in longitudinal sections; 3a, ovary in cross section; 4, anthers; 4a, pollen-grains; 5, fruit, nearly natural size; 6, cross-section of fruit showing rind, large-celled pulp and seeds; 7, 8, and 9, seeds.
ABOUT BEES
FRED. A. WATT
THIS subject is an ancient and honorable one. The most ancient historical records make frequent reference to the honey-bee. A poem written 741 B. C., by Eremetus was devoted to bees. In Scripture we read of them and learn that Palestine was "a land flowing with milk and honey" and we know that wild bees are very numerous there even to the present time. In the year 50 B. C., Varro recommended that hives be made out of basket-work, wool, bark, hollow-trees, pottery, reeds, or transparent stone to enable persons to observe the bees at work. The name "Deborah" is from the Hebrew and means bee; "Melissa," from the Greek, has the same meaning.
Honey-bees were introduced into the United States from Europe, in the seventeenth century, and our wild honey-bees are offspring of escaped swarms. Like all enterprising Yankees they first settled in the eastern states and rapidly spread over the West, where they were regarded with wonder by the Indians and called the "white man's fly." They traveled, or spread, with such regularity that some observers claimed to mark the exact number of miles which they traveled westward during each year.
A great many species are almost, or entirely, worthless for domestic purposes, while those that are especially valuable are very few. The favorite at this time seems to be the Italian species, which was introduced into the United States in 1860.
At the opening of the season each colony of honey-bees contains one laying queen, several drones, and from 3,000 to 40,000 workers. The workers begin by cleaning up the hive, and the queen starts in to rear other bees at once; new comb is started, honey is brought in from the earlier varieties of flowers and the busy bee is launched into another season of sweetness and good works.
The United States Department of Agriculture, in one of its "Farmer's Bulletins," under the heading, "How to Avoid Stings," says, "First, by having gentle bees." At the time I first read this I thought they should have completed the advice by adding "and extract their stings;" but I find on investigation that the subject of gentle bees, is no light matter to the bee-keeper, and that my idea that "a bee is a bee and hence entitled to all the room he requires" does not hold good; that a bee-keeper when purchasing a colony of bees of any species not well known to him will ask if they are gentle in the same tone he would use if he were inquiring about a horse.
Bees seem to do well wherever there are flowers enough to furnish them with food, and are kept for pleasure and profit in all parts of our country. A small plot of ground is devoted to bees by the farmer, a village lot is often filled with hives, and even in our larger cities, especially in New York, Chicago, and Cincinnati, if not in the gardens or on the lawns, they may be found well established on the house-tops, as many as thirty or forty colonies being found on a single roof. They can usually find enough food in and around a city to keep themselves busy without making long excursions; in fact, it sometimes happens that they find more abundant pasturage in a city than they would in the open country, especially where there are large parks and gardens or where the linden (basswood) trees have been set out in any considerable quantities. Sweet clover also sometimes overruns a neglected garden or vacant lot and furnishes a rich field for the city-bred honey-bee.
In Egypt bees are transported on hive-boats from place to place along the Nile according to the succession of flowers. The custom also prevails in Persia, Asia Minor and Greece. In Scotland the same method is used while the heather is in bloom and in Poland bees are transferred back and forth between summer pastures and winter quarters.
A few years ago a floating bee house was constructed on the Mississippi river large enough to carry two thousand colonies. It was designed to be towed up the river from Louisiana to Minnesota, keeping pace with the blossoming of the flowers and then drop back down the river to the sunny South before cold weather should set in in the fall. Honey-bee ships have also been talked of which could carry bees to the West Indies to cruise for honey during the winter.
The bee is not fastidious, but will live in any kind of clean box or barrel that may be provided for its use, hence it sometimes lives in queer places. A swarm escaping will generally make its home in a hollow tree or in a fissure of some large rock. The ancient English hives were generally made of baskets of unpeeled willow. Cork hives are in use in some parts of Europe, and earthenware hives are in use in Greece and Turkey. Glass hives are mentioned as far back as the year 1665. In 1792 movable-comb hives were invented and in the century following more than eight hundred patents were granted on hives in the United States.
Bee products form an important item of income in the United States, more than two billion pounds of honey and wax being produced in a single season. When we consider that this appalling amount of sweetness is gathered a drop here and a drop there it leads us to figures too large to be comprehended.
In considering the value of bees we must by no means think of honey as their sole product, as beeswax is an important article. After the honey has been extracted from the comb the latter is mixed with water and boiled down and run into firm yellow cakes, from which the color disappears if exposed for a certain length of time to the air. Thin slices are exposed until thoroughly bleached, when it is again melted and run into cakes, and is then known as the white wax of commerce. Before oil lamps came into use large quantities of this white wax were used in the manufacture of candles, which made the best light then known, as they burned better than tallow candles and without the smoke or odor which made the tallow article objectionable. The advent of the oil-lamp, the gas jet, and the electric light have practically disposed of its usefulness in that direction, except in devotional exercises, although colored tapers made of white wax are now used for decorative purposes, especially during the holiday season, when numbers of them are used to light our Christmas trees. White wax is also used extensively for making ornamental objects such as models of fruits and flowers. Whole plants are sometimes reproduced and models of various vegetable and animal products are reproduced in colored wax and used for educational or museum purposes. The anatomist finds it of great value in reproducing the normal and diseased structures of the human form. No doubt the original wax works of Mrs. Jarley, made famous by Dickens in "The Old Curiosity Shop," were a collection of wax images made from the product of the honey-bee.
Metheglin is a drink made from honey, and is consumed largely in some parts of the world. It is the nectar which the ancient Scandinavian expected to sip in paradise, using skulls of his enemies as goblets.
The East Indies and the Philippine Islands seem to be under special obligations to astonish the world in everything, and in order to keep pace with their reputations have produced honey-bees of three sizes, one of which is the smallest honey-bee known, and another the largest. The smaller variety is so diminutive that one square inch of comb contains one hundred cells on each side; the entire comb, as it hangs from the twig of a small tree or bush, is only about the size of a man's hand. The workers are a little longer, but somewhat more slender than our common house-fly, and are blue-black in color, with the exception of the anterior third of the abdomen, which is bright orange.
